"Gunko," Garling commanded coldly. "Take Makima."
Before the name had even finished echoing off the wooden rafters, Gunko moved. Her motion was effortless, a fluid, aristocratic blur born of ruthless training among the God's Knights. In a flash of white light, the Aro Aro no Mi's arrow-shaped bands materialized, shooting forward to bind Makima's wrists and pull her firmly toward the exit.
"Don't!" Tenjin roared.
The restraint snapped. Ignoring every warning screaming inside his head, ignoring the agony tearing across his chest and shoulders from his Marineford injuries, Tenjin lunged forward. His boots shattered the floorboards as he exploded toward Gunko, his hand reaching out to grab Makima before she could be dragged across the room.
He didn't make it two steps.
A towering shadow dropped into his path with the terrifying speed of a falling guillotine. A heavy, calloused hand clamped around Tenjin's throat, and a massive wall of kinetic force slammed into his chest, deadening his momentum instantly.
Shamrock stood blocking his path, his expression completely flat, devoid of anger or triumph. He looked at Tenjin with the detached, weary pity of an adult dealing with a frantic child.
"Stay down, Tenjin," Shamrock said quietly.
Tenjin's teeth bared in a snarl of pure, animal fury. He twisted his body, throwing a wild, unrefined punch straight at Shamrock's jaw, channeling every ounce of his remaining physical strength and whatever ragged, uncooperative Haki he could force to the surface.
Shamrock didn't even flinch. He caught Tenjin's fist in an iron-tight grip with casual ease. The impact sent a shockwave rattling through the kitchen windowpanes, but Shamrock's arm didn't tremble by a fraction of an inch.
The disparity was absolute.
Tenjin was a Marine Captain who had clawed his way through the Grand Line, but right now, his body was half-broken, his stamina depleted from a war that had nearly killed him, and his Haki as volatile and erratic as a struck match. Shamrock, operating at the highest tier of the Holy Knights, was an immovable mountain.
With a subtle twist of his wrist, Shamrock redirected Tenjin's momentum, sweeping his legs out from under him and driving him hard into the splintered floorboards.
The impact knocked the remaining wind out of Tenjin's lungs, sending a fresh wave of agony flaring across his ribs. He choked, tasting iron, but instinctively tried to push himself back up. A heavy boot descended between his shoulder blades, pinning him flat against the wood with crushing, unyielding weight.
"You're an idiot," Shamrock murmured down at him, his voice cool and clinical. "You're bleeding through your bandages, your Haki is burning out like a cheap candle, and you think you can challenge the inner circle of Mary Geoise because you're angry?"
"Get off me!" Tenjin screamed, clawing at the floorboards, his eyes blazing with frantic desperation as he watched Gunko pulling Makima toward the door.
"Tenjin!"
Makima's voice cut sharply through the chaos. She stopped, turning her head back despite the arrows binding her arms, her eyes locking onto him with an intensity that burned through his rage.
"Look at me!" she commanded, her voice ringing clear and steady in the tense room. "Look at this village! Do you think I raised you for seventeen years just to watch you throw your life away in a pointless slaughter. Do not destroy yourself!"
"Mom—" Tenjin choked out, struggling violently beneath Shamrock's boot, his chest heaving as tears of frustration finally spilled over his lashes.
"She is entirely correct," Shamrock said, his voice dropping into a cold, logical register as he pressed his boot down slightly harder, ensuring Tenjin stayed pinned. "If you force a wider engagement here, the collateral damage will flatten every house on this island. And even if it didn't, you need to understand something fundamental about how leverage works."
Shamrock glanced toward Gunko, who paused at the doorway with Makima securely in tow, waiting for Garling's signal.
"Makima is a hostage," Shamrock continued, looking back down at the boy thrashing beneath him. "She is valuable only while she is breathing. The moment you force our hand by continuing this suicidal resistance, her utility ends. If you want her to survive the week, stop fighting, stop screaming, and stay on the floor where you belong."
Tenjin hated the words. Every instinct in his blood, every lesson Garp had beaten into him about protecting people, screamed against the sheer, sickening pragmatism of it. But the underlying threat was crystal clear. Garling hadn't come here to execute Makima; he had come to cage her. And if Tenjin pushed them into a corner right now, Garling wouldn't hesitate to use her as a message.
Across the room, Saint Figarland Garling stood entirely still, watching the scene play out with cold, calculating detachment. He didn't smile, nor did he look angry. He didn't need to torture Makima for spectacle or tear the house apart with his bare hands. He had already won. The emotional hooks were set deep into Tenjin's chest, anchored by the most painful realization of all:
The discovery in the previous hours. The revelation that their biological tie meant nothing compared to seventeen years of love hadn't protected Makima. It had only given Garling the exact weapon he needed to break them both.
"Take her to the ship," Garling ordered quietly.
Gunko dragged Makima through the doorway and started down the village path toward the bay. Shamrock remained behind, his boot planted firmly between Tenjin's shoulder blades, while Garling stood silently in the shadow of the doorway, his eyes fixed with cold indifference on the broken boy beneath him.
"No! Wait! Take me instead!" Tenjin shouted, thrashing wildly beneath Shamrock's weight as the distance between himself and Makima grew.
Makima didn't look back again. She walked with her head held high, her shoulders squared, refusing to give the Holy Knights the satisfaction of seeing her break. Only when Gunko and Makima had disappeared beyond the timber fences did Shamrock finally lift his boot. He gave Garling a brief, silent glance, then turned and followed them toward the harbor.
Tenjin scrambled up, ignoring the blinding pain in his chest, and threw himself toward the open door. He burst out onto the wooden porch, staring desperately toward the bay where the Holy Knights were moving with their captive.
For a wild, agonizing second, his mind raced through impossible calculations. Could he run? Could he try forcing his roots through the village road to cut them off before they reached the water? But every single scenario ended with Makima caught in the middle of a slaughter, or ordinary villagers crushed between the terrifying power of the Holy Knights and his own uncontrolled fury, or his own half-healed body collapsing into the dirt before he ever reached the docks. The trap was absolute.
Garling had not followed them to the harbor; he remained standing quietly near the threshold, a silent sentinel waiting for the dust to settle.
Tenjin gripped the porch railing until the old wood splintered beneath his fingers. He couldn't follow them. His mother was gone, taken by the man who had enslaved his other mother, all because he was too weak and too slow.
---
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