Marshall D. Teach was cloaked in a swirling vortex of sinister darkness, his predatory gaze locked firmly onto Whitebeard.
To secure the singular Devil Fruit of his dreams, Teach had memorized the shape and pattern of every fruit in the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia, deliberately concealing his true combat prowess.
He joined the Whitebeard Pirates, successfully lurking as an unassuming crewmate for over twenty years.
Through meticulous calculation, Teach had concluded that because the Whitebeard Pirates held such vast territorial reach and influence, staying with them offered the highest statistical probability of encountering the fruit he desired.
Yet in the beginning, he hadn't harbored high expectations. Tracking down a specific Devil Fruit across an ocean of this scale was nearly impossible; he had even accepted that if he never found the Dark-Dark Fruit, he would simply spend the rest of his days as an ordinary pirate aboard Whitebeard's ship.
At one point, he had even suspected that the Sunagakure Pirates—with their airborne mobility—held a better chance of discovering the Dark-Dark Fruit than Whitebeard's crew.
That was until recently, when a mysterious individual bearing the Dark-Dark Fruit sought him out directly.
This man shared the exact face and appearance of Uchiha Madara, the vice-captain of the Sunagakure Pirates. Yet Teach was certain they were not the same person, as rumors in the underworld indicated the mastermind behind Patrick Redfield's revival years ago was Madara's twin brother.
"You want Whitebeard's power for yourself, don't you?"
"Relying solely on the two of us... taking down Pops is near impossible."
"What if we add Hundred Beasts Kaido to the equation?"
From the very outset, the Four Emperors summit had been engineered as an elaborate death trap targeted directly at Whitebeard.
Following the departure of Red-Haired Shanks and Aoki Shiraishi from Fish-Man Island, Whitebeard—due to his role as the island's sovereign protector—was guaranteed to linger behind, providing the crucial window Teach needed to spring the ambush.
The intelligence regarding Tan Island had also been intentionally leaked to both the Marines and Shiraishi by the conspirators, baiting the two factions into a mutual meat-grinder.
Every step of the scheme was linked together to eliminate Whitebeard, the Sunagakure Pirates' most vital geopolitical ally.
Driven by his coveted Dark-Dark Fruit and unbridled ambition, Blackbeard had accepted the deranged gambit.
Hailed as the most hazardous ability in Devil Fruit history, the Dark-Dark Fruit wielded the gravitational pull of pure darkness.
Upon activation, the user's hands blackened and their body vented dense dark smoke, pulling in, compressing, and pulverizing everything that came into contact with the void.
Furthermore, it could gravitationally reel in Devil Fruit users across open space and nullify their abilities upon physical contact, regardless of whether they were Paramecia, Zoan, or Logia.
Unlike conventional Logia users, the wielder could not disperse into an elemental state to evade incoming harm; instead, they absorbed physical trauma, suffering doubled pain in return.
Additionally, the darkness could absorb external Devil Fruit attacks—such as Whitebeard's seismic shockwaves—though its absorption radius was limited, requiring the user to catch the blow directly with their palm via Dark Vortex (Kurouzu), rendering it ineffective against wide-area, long-range bombardments.
Realizing he had stepped into a prearranged trap, Whitebeard glanced around the perimeter with cool disdain: "Come out, all of you."
The moment the words fell, the Three All-Stars (Disasters) under Hundred Beasts Kaido manifested simultaneously, locking the perimeter in a tight encirclement.
Seismic Cleave: Shatter!
Whitebeard channeled the Tremor-Tremor Fruit (Gura Gura no Mi) to form a sphere of pressurized air over his bisento Murakumogiri.
The strike could fracture the very atmosphere, unleashing devastating shockwaves capable of cleaving an entire island in two when swung with full force.
A terrifying aura swept across the open water. As the Three All-Stars were forced a step back by the immense pressure, Kaido let out a thunderous roar, expelling an apocalyptic blast of scorching thermal breath to clash head-on against Whitebeard's slash!
Both men were Emperors of the Sea who had crossed blades countless times. Despite standing in a lethal ambush, Whitebeard fought with stoic indifference, his bisento tracing sovereign arcs of Conqueror's-infused blade energy across the sky.
Enduring Whitebeard's relentless barrages, Kaido reverted from his azure dragon form back into his human state.
Gripping his spiked kanabo Hassaikai, he locked into a savage slugfest against Whitebeard's bisento, simultaneously transforming his free hand into an armored dragon claw to deliver vicious, underhanded strikes.
Unlike their previous symbolic clashes between Emperors, Kaido unleashed lethal finishing moves without restraint, intent on claiming Whitebeard's life once and for all.
As the clash between Whitebeard and Kaido tore heaven and earth apart, the mysterious figure bearing Madara's face watched from the shadows like a stalking predator.
Kaido's willingness to launch such a proactive assault stemmed entirely from anxiety over his own strategic standing.
With the Sky Corridor as its logistical backbone, the Sunagakure Pirates maintained strong cooperative alliances with both the Whitebeard Pirates and the Red Hair Pirates, leaving Kaido feeling increasingly isolated and cornered.
To break the geopolitical deadlock, he had to take a massive gamble.
Eliminating Whitebeard—the oldest and most physically compromised of the three rival Emperors—was vastly simpler than taking on Shanks or Shiraishi.
The mysterious figure had preyed upon Kaido's desperation to orchestrate today's ambush.
To ensure Whitebeard's demise, he had used the Dark-Dark Fruit as leverage, provoking Teach into launching his mutiny ahead of schedule.
However, although Whitebeard was plagued by illness, bringing him down permanently required unconventional methods. With that thought, the mysterious figure concentrated a portion of the Divine Tree's distilled energy into his palm, compressing it into a specialized Tailed Beast Ball (Bijuudama).
This foreign energy was designed to disrupt the harmony between Whitebeard's Devil Fruit and the natural laws of this world, inducing a localized Chakra poisoning.
Once recognized as an anomaly by this world's natural order, the Tremor-Tremor Fruit would suffer a violent internal backlash, destabilizing Whitebeard's physiology from the inside out.
The Divine Tree's growth in this world had been exceedingly slow, yielding only a meager reservoir of Chakra over the years. Yet to dismantle Shiraishi's network of allies, the infiltrator held nothing back, forcibly unleashing a shinobi technique that had never before appeared in this world!
A specialized kunai whistled through the air. As Whitebeard turned to parry the projectile with his bisento, a distinct formula seal flared to life across the metal hilt.
Flying Thunder God Technique!(Hiraishin no Jutsu)
In a fraction of a millisecond, the mysterious figure teleported directly behind Whitebeard's back!
Yet Whitebeard swung his massive bisento around in a brutal, instantaneous counter-cleave. The overwhelming destructive force radiating from the blade caused the infiltrator's expression to twist in shock.
Whitebeard's advanced Observation Haki had perceived the ambusher in the shadows; his weapon had been prepped for the counter-strike all along!
Defying expectations, the infiltrator made no attempt to evade the fatal swing. Instead, he drove the condensed Tailed Beast Ball forward to block the seismic vibrations coursing through Murakumogiri.
BOOM!
A blinding flash of energy detonated. A concentrated dose of foreign Chakra bypassed the shockwave, infiltrating Whitebeard's bloodstream!
Like an invasive virus, the energy took root instantly. Whitebeard's complexion shifted as the powers of his Tremor-Tremor Fruit began exhibiting violent signs of internal instability.
Witnessing the infiltrator deploy a bizarre technique that nearly drove Whitebeard's Devil Fruit out of control, a flicker of deep killing intent flashed through the eyes of both Teach and Kaido.
An esoteric energy capable of corrupting and unraveling Devil Fruit powers ignited profound wariness in both pirates.
Neither Kaido nor Teach moved to press the assault, choosing instead to hang back and let the mysterious figure clash against Whitebeard alone.
Those treacherous bastards...
Though ambushed by an unknown energy that ravaged his internal organs, Whitebeard was not a man who collapsed easily.
Even with his Devil Fruit powers temporarily suppressed, his Armament and Conqueror's Haki remained fully intact. He raised his bisento once more, striking downward with unrestrained fury.
Seismic Shatter: Spatial Cleave!
Enraged, Whitebeard unleashed his absolute pinnacle output. White spheres of pressurized atmospheric energy enveloped both of his fists; channeling this seismic compression alongside his Conqueror's Haki, he shattered everything he touched on contact, fracturing the very air into jagged, spiderweb cracks.
A cataclysmic wave of absolute destruction swept across the entire sea.