The root path rang with steel.
Vice Admiral Momonga stood in a proper Marine sword stance, blade held steady, shoulders squared, feet perfectly aligned on the uneven bark of the mangrove root as if the path itself had been built for him. His coat fluttered in the sea breeze, white justice cape bright against the riot of bubbles drifting around them.
Across from him stood Limejuice.
One hand low. One hand high. Staff angled carelessly across his body.
Carelessly—
Until one looked at his eyes.
Then the illusion fell apart.
The black sheen of Armament Haki glimmered along both ends of the iron staff, catching the filtered sunlight in dull, dangerous flashes. Limejuice's expression had lost all trace of its usual laid-back irritation. What remained was cold.
Momonga saw it.
Good.
That meant the man had finally stopped trying to talk his way out.
"Finished explaining yourself?" Momonga asked.
Limejuice rolled one shoulder and clicked his tongue.
"I hope you are able to backup your words."
Then he tapped the end of his staff once against the ground.
"So come on, Vice Admiral. Show me the difference between a loyal Marine and a so-called betrayer."
Momonga moved first.
There was no flourish in him. No wasted motion. Just a clean, efficient burst forward, boots digging into the mangrove root as he closed the gap with a swordsman's precision. His first cut came from the left, angled to test Limejuice's reaction. His second was already chained behind it, a tighter stroke aimed for the ribs, the kind of pressure sequence meant to force a staff user into retreat.
Limejuice didn't retreat.
He met the first strike with the lower end of his staff.
CLANG.
The impact rang up the root path. He rolled his wrists immediately, guiding the blade away rather than trying to overpower it. Then the upper end of the staff snapped down in a straight line to intercept the second cut before it could finish its arc.
CLANG.
For one heartbeat, their weapons locked.
Then Limejuice twisted.
Momonga's blade was thrown off-center just enough for Limejuice to step inside his range and slam the butt of the staff toward the Vice Admiral's jaw.
Momonga leaned back.
The iron missed his face by inches—
But Limejuice was already spinning through the motion.
The far end of the staff whipped around like a hooked tail and cracked against Momonga's shoulder hard enough to send him skidding across the bark.
Momonga's boots tore grooves into the root before he caught himself.
Limejuice exhaled through his nose.
"You're not bad."
Momonga reset his stance immediately.
"It seems you are not the easy opponent."
"Of course I'm not." Limejuice said.
"But without fail I will capture you."
Then Momonga vanished low.
He cut across the ground in a sharp dash, blade tracking for Limejuice's lead leg this time. It was a smart adjustment. Staff users liked space. Take the base out from under them and the rhythm broke.
Limejuice saw it.
His body shifted back before the blade fully came through.
Observation wasn't his strong suit the way it was Giovanni's, but experience was. And experience told him exactly what kind of Marine Momonga was. Disciplined, direct, and dangerous if allowed to establish tempo.
So Limejuice denied him tempo.
He kicked off a broken rail post and leapt sideways, landing on the outer curve of the mangrove root where the path dipped toward a lower canal. The footing there was worse, slick, uneven, crowded by drifting bubble clusters. But that suited him.
Momonga came after him without hesitation.
Good.
Limejuice smiled faintly.
He swept his staff outward in a wide horizontal arc, not at Momonga.
At the bubbles.
Dozens burst at once.
Rainbow shimmer and sticky residue exploded into the air, momentarily obscuring sightlines and making the root surface slicker than before. Momonga's eyes narrowed, but he didn't stop. He stepped into the haze and cut by sound, blade carving through the burst mist in a perfect diagonal line.
Limejuice had already moved.
His staff came down from above.
Momonga raised his sword and blocked, Armament Haki darkening the blade just enough to keep the staff from crushing through it. The force still drove him lower, one knee nearly touching the bark.
Limejuice pressed.
Then withdrew instantly.
Then pressed again from a new angle.
High. Low. Mid. Reverse swing. Straight jab.
His staff moved with practiced cruelty, every rotation flowing into the next. It didn't fight like a sword. It fought like a machine made to break structure. To interrupt rhythm. To punish clean lines with ugly angles.
Momonga was skilled enough to keep up.
Barely.
He blocked the jab, slipped under the next horizontal sweep, and answered with a thrust aimed at Limejuice's throat.
Limejuice leaned his head aside and let the blade skim along the side of his neck without fully landing. The moment it passed, he trapped Momonga's sword arm between the shaft of the staff and his own forearm, pivoted—
And drove his knee into Momonga's stomach.
The Vice Admiral grunted.
Limejuice let go only to spin the staff around and strike across Momonga's back.
WHAM.
Momonga stumbled forward two steps before twisting around with surprising speed and cutting backhanded for Limejuice's torso.
This time Limejuice had to respect it.
He brought both hands up and caught the slash on the hardened middle section of his staff. Sparks spat from the contact. Momonga pushed, Haki and swordsmanship forcing pressure through the bind.
Limejuice's grin returned.
"So you do know how to when you try."
Momonga's face stayed grim.
"I know how to cut down pirates."
Limejuice twisted the bind, rolled his staff down, and used the leverage point to wrench Momonga's blade off-line. Then he stepped into the opening and slammed the blackened end of the staff into the Vice Admiral's chest.
Momonga's body lifted.
Then crashed through a low mangrove railing and rolled down the sloped bark toward the canal below.
He stopped himself with his sword jammed into the root.
Breathing hard now.
Limejuice stood above him, staff balanced across one shoulder.
"You're still standing."
Momonga coughed once, then pulled himself upright.
"As are you."
Limejuice clicked his tongue.
"Yeah, but I'm not the one getting beaten up."
Momonga rose fully this time, chest heaving a little harder.
The Vice Admiral's shoulder ached. His ribs were barking. His stomach still hadn't forgiven that knee. But his eyes never lost their edge.
He launched forward again.
This time he changed levels.
No straightforward Marine textbook pressure. He started incorporating the terrain, stepping off mangrove knots, rebounding through railings, using the elevation changes in the root to disguise the angle of his strikes. His sword flashed from below, then from the side, then overhead in a sharp descending arc that forced Limejuice to leap backward onto a hanging cargo platform suspended by bubble-rope.
The platform swayed violently.
Limejuice steadied himself with one foot and laughed despite it all.
"There you go. Thought I'd have to teach you everything."
Momonga jumped up after him.
Big mistake.
The moment he landed on the unstable platform, Limejuice stomped hard on one side.
The bubble-rope pitched.
The platform tilted.
Momonga adjusted instantly, but not fast enough.
Limejuice' staff spun once and came in from the blind spot created by the shifting floor.
It hit Momonga square across the face.
The Vice Admiral flew off the platform and crashed through a stack of empty cargo bubbles below, bursting them in a ridiculous chain of popping explosions before slamming onto the root again.
Silence.
Then a low groan.
Limejuice hopped down after him and planted the end of the staff beside Momonga's head.
"Listen carefully," he said. "You were better than those Marines back there."
Momonga glared up at him.
"But not enough better."
Limejuice stepped back.
"I told you. I'm not with the Red-Haired Pirates."
He looked down with flat irritation.
"And now I'm in a worse mood because you called me a traitor."
Momonga tried to rise.
Limejuice tapped the staff against his shoulder once.
"Stay down for a minute."
---
Elsewhere in the archipelago, another fight had never truly become one.
It had become a demonstration.
Vice Admiral Tokikake came in first, teeth clenched, still personally offended by the fact that Shanks' ship had slipped through his grove while he was napping.
Rear Admiral T-Bone came from the left, sword raised in dramatic justice.
Rear Admiral Strawberry advanced from the center, heavier and more controlled, aiming to pin the enemy down while the others closed.
Benn Beckman stood opposite all three with one hand in his pocket.
Building Snake stood slightly behind him.
And that was already enough to make the whole situation feel unfair.
"Snake," Beckman said without looking back, "don't move."
Building Snake blinked. "What?"
"Just watch."
Tokikake shouted and rushed first. "I'm not getting embarrassed twice in one day!"
T-Bone charged right after him, roaring something about righteous sacrifice. Strawberry said nothing, but his weapon came down in a crushing arc aimed to trap Beckman between both flanks.
Beckman sighed.
Then he moved.
The first thing that hit Tokikake was Beckman's hand.
A casual palm strike to the face that redirected the Vice Admiral's entire rush sideways and sent him crashing through a signboard he hadn't even noticed. Beckman turned that same motion into a pivot, drew his pistol halfway, and fired once.
Bang.
The shot hit the mangrove path directly in front of T-Bone's advancing foot.
The bark exploded upward.
T-Bone's charge broke for one fatal instant.
Beckman stepped in and slammed the butt of the pistol into his sternum hard enough to lift the Rear Admiral off the ground before kicking him backward into Tokikake's half-risen body.
Both men went down in a tangle of coats and justice.
Strawberry was already there.
Good.
He was the only one of the three whose timing hadn't been ruined yet.
His weapon came in from the side. Beckman ducked, let it scream over his head, and answered with a point-blank shot from beneath the swing.
Bang.
The bullet tore through Strawberry's sleeve and punched into the shoulder. Blood sprayed.
Beckman followed with a straight punch to the ribs.
Then another.
Then a short-range knee that sent the larger Marine stumbling back.
Tokikake came in again from Beckman's blind side, finally finding an angle—
Only for Beckman to lean half an inch out of line and fire another shot without even turning.
The bullet clipped Tokikake's hand.
Tokikake stared at his bleeding hand.
"You are so rude," he said.
Beckman answered by kicking him in the chest.
Tokikake disappeared into a pile of market crates.
T-Bone rose roaring, sword lifted high in both hands.
"For justice and all innocent—!"
Bang.
The bullet hit the blade near the guard and knocked the trajectory wide.
Beckman stepped inside the ruined swing and struck T-Bone three times in the span of a blink—jaw, solar plexus, throat.
T-Bone collapsed upright against a mangrove post, somehow still conscious out of sheer moral determination, eyes spinning.
Strawberry came one last time.
Beckman shot the ground in front of him, shattered the footing, watched the Rear Admiral lose balance, and then planted his boot cleanly into the man's chest.
Strawberry hit the bark hard and stayed there.
Silence followed.
Building Snake stared.
He hadn't drawn a sword.
He hadn't moved a muscle.
He hadn't had to.
The three Marines were down.
All three.
Beckman flicked ash from his cigarette, which somehow had never fallen from the corner of his mouth despite the entire exchange.
"See?" he said.
Building Snake blinked. "That… wasn't a fight."
"No," Beckman agreed. "It really wasn't."
He looked down the path in the direction of the harbor.
"Come on. We need to go get the ship ready for departure."
Snake snapped out of it immediately. "Right."
The two of them broke into a run, leaving Tokikake groaning in shattered crates, T-Bone trying to lecture himself back into consciousness, and Strawberry lying flat on the root path wondering how a man could make three officers look like amateurs without even trying.
---
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