A massive white pirate ship, over eighty meters long and flying the long-haired white skull flag, swayed lightly on the sea. Onboard, Enrod and Galan's crew stood frozen, stunned into silence by the spectacle before them.
"G-Galan... am I seeing things?" Enrod stammered, his voice cracking with disbelief. "Did Captain Aeridar just... shatter the air? That tsunami, did he cause it?!"
Galan swallowed hard, his throat bobbing. He stared wide-eyed at the surging sea, the enormous wave rushing solely toward the Marine reconnaissance fleet in the distance. "I-I think... I think you're right," he answered hoarsely.
Just moments ago, they had both witnessed Aeridar's fist glow with a faint, ghostly white light. Then, with one strike to open air, the very atmosphere cracked like glass.
Under a sky that had been clear moments before, the ocean erupted, boiling and heaving, summoning a monstrous wave that crashed forward.
Strangely, not a ripple touched their side of the sea. No wind. No current. As if the destruction had been selective.
The entire sea shook.
A half-sector of ocean churned violently, the sound of the tsunami booming like the march of a thousand war drums.
The waves alternated between rising and collapsing in massive arcs, their peaks towering like city walls. They roared from the skies, slamming downward with unrelenting force.
"Dammit... there's no way to dodge this!"
On the lead Marine vessel, a middle-aged Rear Admiral, soaked to the bone, stood at the bow.
He gazed up at the dozens-of-meters-high wave barreling toward them with a bitter smile. He was no Devil Fruit user. Not a master swordsman of the famed Sword Saint class. He had no long-range weapon strong enough to disperse such a threat.
What could he possibly do?
"Damn it... how did it come to this?!"
"We're gonna die out here?!"
"Killed not by pirates, but by nature itself?!"
"This can't be it... I haven't even avenged my comrades yet!"
Aboard the Marine ship, dozens of sailors froze, wide-eyed. Their faces were painted with despair as they stared at the towering wall of water, as unstoppable as fate.
Then, something changed in the Rear Admiral's eyes. A flash of fury. A final spark of defiance.
Snarling, his voice exploded like thunder:
"Fire the cannons! Don't give up now! Blast that damn wave apart!"
He wasn't one of those gifted with supernatural powers, but as a practitioner of Rokushiki, he had mastered Rankyaku. He might not match the might of an Admiral, but he'd fight like hell to carve out a path of survival.
"If we're going down, we'll go down fighting!"
"I refuse to let my journey as a Marine end here!"
Spurred on by their commander's war cry, the crew roared to life. Hundreds of sailors dragged crates of ammunition from the lower decks, ramming any dry shell they could find into the guns.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The cannons thundered in chorus, sending volley after volley of black-iron shells into the sky. Fire and smoke belched from the barrels, the stench of powder filling the air. Explosions tore through the tsunami's face, sending plumes of seawater flying.
"FULL-FORCE—RANKYAKU: MAXIMUM RING SLASH!!"
The Rear Admiral's face flushed red. Veins bulged across his neck as he launched into the air with a primal roar. He soared seven, eight meters high, before flipping backward, hook-kicking through the sky.
His right leg snapped downward with terrifying force.
The muscles in his thigh contracted like coiled steel, compressing and releasing in an instant. From the motion, a massive blue-white crescent blade erupted in midair, slicing forward with screaming windspeed.
The Rankyaku strike slammed into the center of the wave. With a mighty screech, the upper half of the tsunami was split in two. Water exploded outward in chaotic spirals. The cannons had softened the base, making the strike just barely land cleanly.
He crashed down onto the deck, his right leg shaking violently. He dropped to one knee, his knuckles slamming into the planks beneath him.
The whole ship shuddered.
Through clenched teeth, he spat a single word laced with blood and rage:
His slash had only split the top of the wave.
The bottom half, still over twenty meters high, was coming fast, more than enough to drag an entire Marine warship into the abyss.
And worse, looming behind that wave... was an even taller one.
Moments later, the first wave came crashing down, submerging the Marine warship like a child's toy.
Thousands of tons of seawater rained from above, slamming into the vessel with apocalyptic force, tearing it apart in an instant.
All that remained were splintered planks and the lifeless bodies of Marines drifting with the current.
Thirty nautical miles away, Alvis Island.
An isolated landmass far from any official sea route, the island was rarely visited.
Its terrain was split in two: the front third featured open plains, forests, and a small river, along which stood a modest town of several thousand residents.
The back two-thirds were dense, uncharted wilderness, rugged mountains and perilous rivers where few dared venture.
In the town's makeshift harbor lay a ship over a hundred meters long, with a sharp triangular ram jutting from its bow. A pirate flag fluttered at its mast: a snarling white skull adorned with sharp fangs and a gold triangle pendant.
This was no merchant vessel, it was unmistakably a pirate ship.
Onboard, a dozen pirates in mismatched garb rushed to the deck, having felt the ship lurch unnaturally. They crowded along the rails, peering curiously at the gradually churning sea, and the waterline that was... rising.
"Nani? A tsunami out there or something?" muttered a shirtless pirate, eyes fixed on the distant waves roiling unnaturally.
"That doesn't make sense," said another, an older helmsman with a white coat and a Log Pose strapped to his wrist. He scratched his head, confused. "There was a tsunami just the other day. Sure, tsunamis in the New World follow no damn rules, but even by that standard, this is way too soon for another one."
A younger pirate with black hair pulled a Den Den Mushi from his pocket. "Should we let the captain know?"
"Yeah. This water's rising too fast, and something about it feels... off."
The veteran navigator nodded, his brow furrowed, staring hard at the strangely swelling sea. Under his breath, he muttered, "Feels like I've seen this kind of surge before..."
Inside the town's tavern...
The place had been completely taken over by pirates.
At the bar sat a tall, lanky man with messy blond hair. His appearance was odd, one eye large, the other small, and around his neck hung a gold, patterned triangle pendant. He wore a gray plaid shirt under a brown coat embroidered with gold thread, loose black trousers, and a pair of sandals.
"Goddamn it! This backwater hellhole's so well hidden, and don't even get me started on the traps!"
The man scowled, gripping his wooden mug with sharp, beast-like teeth bared, his entire mouth filled with pointed fangs, giving him a feral, menacing air.
"Heh~ Captain, bet you won't be complaining once we hit the jackpot," chuckled a brawny man beside him, hair wild and golden. "It's a legendary site, right? Danger comes with the territory. We just need to get past a few traps, no big deal."
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