Grand Line — Sabaody Archipelago
The farther Tenjin moved into Sabaody Archipelago, the stranger the island became.
The giant mangroves rose like pillars from the earth, their roots twisting through streets and marketplaces like the bones of some ancient living thing. Bubbles drifted lazily through the air, shining under the light, while voices echoed from every direction. Pirates shouting, merchants bargaining, civilians panicking, Marines advancing, and somewhere beneath all of it the uneasy pulse of an island that knew something terrible was coming.
An Admiral.
Everyone knew an Admiral would come.
That knowledge had already poisoned the mood of the whole archipelago.
Tenjin moved through it with quick, easy steps, coat over his shoulders, eyes scanning the paths and rooftops around him. He was not in the mood for distractions.
He was looking for one pirate.
One very specific pirate.
And yet—
The moment he entered a wide broken plaza between two tangled mangrove roots, he stopped.
Because there were several of them.
A group of figures stood spread across the wrecked clearing, each one radiating the sort of confidence that only came from strength, fame, and a bounty large enough to make lesser men reconsider breathing too loudly in their presence.
At the center of the ruin, a Pacifista loomed over the shattered ground, smoke rising from its mouth and limbs.
Directly in front of it was Urouge.
The giant monk pirate's body had swelled to monstrous proportions, muscles bulging from absorbed damage as he drove massive punches into the Pacifista's armor with roaring force. Every strike shook the ground beneath his feet.
To one side stood Basil Hawkins, cards in one hand, expression calm and unreadable as though the entire scene were just another line in a prediction he had already accepted.
A short distance away, X Drake watched with narrowed eyes, body angled and ready, his heavy weapon resting near his shoulder.
And above them—
On the roof of a broken building—
Scratchmen Apoo lounged with infuriating ease, looking down over the chaos below like a man attending a performance he had not paid for.
Tenjin's eyes moved slowly from face to face.
Then he said, almost to himself—
"So these are the pirate captains worth over one hundred million."
His voice carried farther than expected.
All of them looked.
Apoo leaned forward from the roof, squinting.
Then his face twisted in open disappointment.
"Aw, come on," he said. "That's not an Admiral."
Tenjin looked up at him.
Apoo pointed down with obvious irritation. "I was hoping for something exciting."
Tenjin's eye twitched.
Nearby, Hawkins calmly drew a card from his deck and turned it over.
He looked at it once.
Then let the faintest, most knowing breath escape his nose.
'So I won't die today.'
The card in his hand said exactly that.
Tenjin stepped forward.
The air around him sharpened.
"Well then," he said, voice even, "the Supernova should show me whether all that hype is actually worth anything."
Urouge grinned at that, still huge from his Devil Fruit power.
Drake's eyes narrowed.
Apoo's smile widened.
Hawkins simply slid the card back into his deck.
Then Tenjin saw him properly.
X Drake.
The moment Tenjin's eyes settled on the former rear admiral's face, he recognized him.
Not from pirate posters.
But from Garp.
Once, offhandedly and in the loose way Garp spoke when discussing things far above other people's pay grades, he had mentioned that some Marines walked into darkness wearing pirate flags.
One of those names had been Drake.
Rear Admiral X Drake.
An undercover member of SWORD.
Tenjin's thoughts sharpened instantly.
'So it really is him.'
But his expression did not change.
And neither did Drake's.
Because if Drake was here as a pirate, then Tenjin could only treat him like one.
And if Drake saw that Tenjin understood, then he would have to respond the same way.
They both knew it in the same instant.
Drake shifted his grip.
Tenjin gave him nothing.
Good.
That was how it had to be.
Apoo laughed from the rooftop.
"So what now, Captain Newspaper? You gonna arrest all of us by yourself?"
Tenjin looked up at him.
"Yes."
And then he moved.
The ground exploded beneath him.
Roots burst upward from the cracked plaza in a violent spread, thick and living and immediate. They shot across the stone like snakes, splitting tile and concrete apart as they surged for every pirate in the clearing at once.
"Kinniku Mori Mori."
The words left Tenjin low and calm.
Wood erupted up his arms in thick, bulging layers, bark and trunk winding over muscle until his forearms looked like the limbs of some young forest giant. The growth made him broader, heavier, harder. His body still visible within it, but now clothed in raw vegetal strength.
Urouge saw the roots first and moved with a roar, swinging one enlarged fist downward.
Tenjin met it.
One wooden arm crashed upward and intercepted the blow.
The shockwave split the dirt beneath them.
Urouge's eyes widened.
Tenjin's expression stayed flat.
Then the roots behind Urouge coiled around his enlarged legs and yanked.
Urouge lost balance for just one second.
That was enough.
Tenjin's other arm slammed into his chest like a battering ram and sent the giant monk skidding backward through broken stone and uprooted roots.
Drake came in next.
Fast.
Efficient.
He closed distance with the ruthlessness of a trained Marine and the savagery of a pirate, blade flashing toward Tenjin's neck in one clean horizontal cut.
Tenjin's body opened into bark and leaves.
The blade passed through him.
Drake's eyes narrowed further.
'Logia.'
Tenjin reformed around the cut and drove a root-coated elbow toward Drake's ribs. Drake blocked and was still sent backward, boots carving trenches through the plaza.
Hawkins moved then, Warabide Sword in hand.
Straw burst from his sleeve and coiled into shape, forming the familiar straw blade with its flexible, wicked edge. He slashed downward and a wave of straw lashed out toward Tenjin's torso.
Tenjin did not dodge.
The straw passed through his body.
Then roots burst from beneath Hawkins' feet.
Hawkins leapt back, coat fluttering, another card already between his fingers.
Apoo finally got interested.
He sprang from the rooftop, his body shifting into instruments mid-fall, arm changing shape as he landed and immediately launched into music.
"Tatakau Music: Scratch!"
His rhythm cut across the battlefield.
Tenjin heard it.
Felt it.
A sound-slice tore toward him before detonating across his shoulder and chest, sending bark fragments and splintered wood spinning from his body.
Tenjin's eyes sharpened.
'So that's his trick.'
Apoo laughed.
"Oho! You can still get hit, Newspaper!"
Tenjin looked at him.
Then smiled.
Roots burst straight up the side of the broken building behind Apoo and wrapped around the roofline. The entire structure groaned once before Tenjin ripped it sideways with one brutal pull.
Apoo's grin vanished.
The rooftop collapsed.
He leapt clear, twisting in midair and trying to strike another rhythm—
But Tenjin was already there.
One bark-covered fist slammed into Apoo's midsection and folded him in half before hurling him straight through the falling debris.
Below, the Pacifista turned.
Its mechanical eyes flashed.
A laser began to gather at its mouth—
Then vines wrapped around its jaw and forced the beam upward, blasting a hole through the mangrove canopy instead of Tenjin's body.
Urouge roared and came in again, larger now, stronger from pain. He swung a monstrous punch meant to flatten Tenjin into the plaza.
Tenjin let the blow pass through his torso, reformed at Urouge's side, and drove a cluster of roots straight into the pirate monk's shoulder and side.
Urouge's enlarged frame shuddered.
Strength left him in visible waves.
His muscles began to deflate.
He tried to swing again—
And dropped to one knee instead.
Hawkins attacked from behind, straw monster forming in a rushing mass around him as nails and sharpened straw surged outward.
Tenjin turned.
Roots rose.
Straw clashed with wood in a wild tearing burst that filled the plaza with shredded fibers and broken bark. Hawkins' construct was large, cruel-looking, and full of layered movements meant to overwhelm—
But it still couldn't touch a Logia it could not actually hurt.
Tenjin let the claws and straw spikes pass through him, then sent a forest of roots through the straw mass from below, tearing it apart from the inside.
Hawkins stumbled back.
His expression remained calm.
Too calm.
Tenjin noticed.
Then understood why.
'Damage redirection.'
Of course.
Hawkins was not surviving on composure alone.
He was surviving on dolls.
Tenjin clicked his tongue.
"Annoying."
Drake transformed.
Not fully.
Hybrid first.
Bones shifted. Height expanded. Teeth sharpened. The allosaurus form rose across his frame in brutal, ancient proportions, turning the former rear admiral into something far more dangerous in close combat.
He came in low and violent, tail sweeping across the ground, blade and claws working together to attack not like a Marine—
But like a pirate beast.
Tenjin respected that.
So he hit him like one.
Wood shot up from the plaza and formed a giant arm behind Tenjin, thicker and denser than anything he had used so far.
The limb flexed once.
Then swung.
Drake blocked with crossed arms and still went flying, smashing through the Pacifista's side and sending both crashing through a ruined wall.
For a second, the whole battlefield was smoke, roots, splintered bark, broken stone, scattered music-notes from Apoo's fading attack, and the heavy sound of men realizing too late that hype and bounty meant very little when they couldn't actually strike the thing in front of them.
Tenjin stood in the middle of it all.
Untouched.
Or near enough.
Apoo staggered back to his feet and tried one more sound strike.
Tenjin buried him under a burst of roots.
Urouge tried to rise.
Tenjin pinned him down.
Hawkins drew another card.
Tenjin ripped the deck from his hand with a vine and flung the whole thing into the air.
Drake came out of the rubble one more time.
Tenjin met him with a barrage of root lashes and trunk-heavy blows until the undercover rear admiral finally slid back and stayed there, breathing hard, refusing to expose more than he already had.
One by one—
All four were broken.
Not finished.
But defeated.
Tenjin looked over the ruin he had made.
The plaza was a wreck. The Pacifista had been half-crushed in the exchange. Apoo was coughing somewhere under roots and debris. Urouge knelt, drained and furious. Hawkins still looked composed but had lost far too many options too quickly. Drake, for all his discipline, knew he could not keep trading with an enemy he wasn't free to counter properly.
Tenjin took one step forward.
Then stopped.
'…Wait.'
His eyes widened just a fraction.
Straw Hat.
Kizaru.
That had been the whole point.
He clicked his tongue hard.
"I'm wasting time."
Apoo, still half-buried, looked up in disbelief.
"That's your takeaway?!"
Tenjin ignored him completely.
He turned on his heel.
"Play around with the Pacifista if you want," he said. "I've got someone else to find."
And just like that—
He left.
The Supernova captains stared after him through the wreckage, disbelief and irritation hanging over the plaza like smoke.
Above them, bubbles drifted lazily through the light as if nothing at all had happened.
---
Find early chapters and daily updates on my patreon
[Patreon.com/tenten100?]
Follow me on Instagram [www.instagram.com/tenten100_?]