Chapter 19: Father Beats Son
Whitebeard's impossibly towering frame radiated immense pressure by sheer presence alone — and the Conqueror's Haki he was deliberately pressing down upon Blackbeard Teach only made it worse. Cold sweat beaded at Teach's temples. His heart was hammering at the edge of what he could endure.
The reason Blackbeard Teach was so thoroughly terrified was simple: he was a reincarnator. He knew, better than anyone, exactly what Whitebeard was capable of.
At Marineford, Whitebeard had nearly brought the entire Marine Headquarters down around their ears.
Though that was still almost a year away.
The Whitebeard standing before him now was only stronger than the one at Marineford — because many of the old man's hidden injuries hadn't yet caught up with him.
There was no way his current self could match this stubborn old fossil — not even with the Dark-Dark Fruit already consumed, not even with his memories from a past life, not even with all that rich, accumulated experience wielding the Dark-Dark Fruit's abilities.
The fatal problem was this: yes, he had experience with the Dark-Dark Fruit.
But his body had not yet fully bonded with the Devil Fruit's power.
He needed at least two more weeks before his body and the fruit could achieve perfect fusion.
Only then could he properly develop the techniques he'd mastered in his previous life.
Whitebeard was not going to give him two weeks.
The only technique Blackbeard Teach could execute reliably right now was Dark Vortex.
And even if he forced out one of his past-life techniques —
What good would it actually do?!
Was he really going to die here today?
No. He couldn't die. He'd clawed his way back to life for this. He absolutely could not die so easily in a place like this. He absolutely could not die at the hands of this old fossil standing right in front of him.
Staring at Whitebeard's darkened expression, Blackbeard Teach quietly swallowed. He wrestled his face into something resembling a smile — a pained, desperate thing — and spoke in a voice cracked with pleading:
"O-Old man… Pops… I… I just… it was only a moment of weakness, I got… I got confused, I…"
He never got to finish.
A massive fist, wreathed in white radiance, was already moving.
It came with the speed of thunder and the force of a collapsing mountain — the shockwave alone sent churning walls of air roiling outward. An ordinary person standing even moderately close would have been hurled off their feet by the displaced air alone.
Observation Haki screamed a single message at Blackbeard Teach: Danger. Extreme danger.
But Blackbeard had no time to dodge.
Because Whitebeard had closed the distance to nothing.
At this range, if Blackbeard could still get away — then Edward Newgate would have no right to call himself the Strongest Man in the World.
In the space between one heartbeat and the next, the fist blazing with white light connected squarely with Blackbeard's skull.
Teach's mind went blank. Then white.
His eyes rolled back. Shattered fragments of teeth sprayed through the air in a red mist.
His entire face warped and crumpled under the impact.
His massive, obese frame was driven straight into the ground by the force of the blow.
Head first into the earth.
Blood, pouring like a river.
The ground beneath them heaved and cracked violently. Savage gusts of air tore outward in all directions, peeling back the haze of smoke and dust. The two massive figures sank downward together — the earth beneath their feet had already been shattered into fragments.
The invisible pressure wave rampaged outward, sweeping away the lingering smoke and dust.
What it revealed was a crater spanning hundreds of meters in diameter.
At least seventy or eighty meters deep.
Possibly deeper.
The tremor rolled through all of Fish-Man Island. Those fish-men and merfolk who didn't know better assumed some great underwater earthquake had struck.
And this was after Whitebeard had consciously held himself back. After he'd reined in his power.
Had he not — the radius of destruction wouldn't have stopped there. At minimum, half of Fish-Man Island would have been caught in the blast.
"Hgnh… hss… *cough cough cough*—"
Blackbeard lay on his back at the base of the crater, drenched in blood. The darkness that had lurked behind his eyes was gone. Even his pupils were barely visible — they had rolled back so completely he'd nearly died from a single punch.
And that punch had carried the power of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit.
The fact that it hadn't turned his brain into soup was honestly a testament to Blackbeard's sheer toughness.
But then — this was the man who had single-handedly triggered the beginning and the end of Marineford. A little extra durability was only natural.
Whitebeard stood still, looking down at the motionless Blackbeard Teach. The fury on his face had cooled, replaced by something colder and more deliberate.
Whatever memory crossed his mind, he bit out the words:
Whitebeard: "Teach… you've disappointed me."
Blackbeard, for his part, had nothing resembling coherent thought left. His ears were ringing — a continuous, endless tone.
He couldn't hear a word Whitebeard was saying.
Whitebeard: "If you wanted the Dark-Dark Fruit — all you had to do was ask. Would your old man have refused?! Instead you chose the wrong path. Chose to betray your family. Chose to harm your own kin. You… are no longer a member of the Whitebeard Pirates. And your life… ends today."
Whitebeard slowly raised Murakumogiri.
He leveled it at Blackbeard's prone form.
A long, steady breath in.
Then, without hesitation — he drove it down.
Crimson blood erupted instantly.
It splashed across Whitebeard's trousers in a wide spray.
The massive bisento drove through Blackbeard's chest and buried itself in the earth beneath him. Blackbeard's body convulsed — some deep animal instinct clawing toward resistance — but no resistance came.
Whitebeard pulled Murakumogiri free, expression blank.
Then brought it down again. Hard.
A large, grotesque head rolled free.
The eyes on that head snapped open without warning.
The irises were threaded with dense, red filaments. They were filled with an expression of total, incredulous disbelief.
Whitebeard: "Almost forgot — Admin-dono mentioned you likely have multiple hearts. To kill you cleanly… best to take the head."
Yukari Yakumo, who had witnessed everything at close range, quietly folded her parasol.
Her clear, luminous eyes drifted to Blackbeard Teach's remains.
She gave a small, resigned shrug.
Yukari Yakumo: "It seems this one's services were not required after all. Just as Admin-dono said — the two of us were merely here to collect the reward."
If she was being honest with herself, Yukari Yakumo was perhaps just the tiniest bit disappointed.
After all, Blackbeard Teach carried quite the title — 'Reincarnator.' Just from the name, it was obvious he was supposed to be a formidable, troublesome opponent.
Instead he'd been dealt with in a handful of blows by Whitebeard.
Well. A father was still a father.
This was the textbook definition of a father beating his son.
Yukari Yakumo: "The mission should count as complete, yes? Four or five days spent, against a time limit of ten. Not even half the allotted time and it's already settled. One must say — this Blackbeard… was remarkably feeble."
She wasn't being kind. She'd been prepared to intervene herself. And yet — who could have predicted it? The man bearing the title of 'Reincarnator' had been hammered flat by Whitebeard without so much as a single moment of meaningful resistance.
Not even a sliver of a chance to fight back.
This had to be the most tragic reincarnator in recorded history.
Though whether there existed any reincarnator more pitiable than Blackbeard —
Yukari Yakumo genuinely wasn't sure.
Just as Yukari Yakumo's thoughts were wandering, a pop-up notification materialized simultaneously in the minds of Yagami Ryū, Whitebeard, and Yukari Yakumo.
[ Group Quest Complete — 『Terminate the Illegal Reincarnator』 ]
[ Quest Participants: Edward Newgate, Yukari Yakumo ]
[ Reward Distribution Processing… ]