The cavern beneath Green Bit shook as the two titans faced one another. Leo—the Mori Ningen, a living forest incarnate—stood rooted in the shattered remains of the laboratory, his colossal form dwarfing what little structure remained. Roots spread outward like veins, burrowing deep into stone and steel alike, reclaiming the underground world inch by inch. Leaves rustled along his towering frame, glowing faintly with life energy.
Across from him, the ancient giant roared. It was a sound older than history, older than kingdoms—raw, unfiltered fury torn from a throat that had once shouted war cries in an age long forgotten. The giant pounded its massive fists against its chest and charged again, every step cracking the cavern floor like an earthquake.
Leo moved first. From the ground, massive roots erupted, thicker than ships' masts, surging upward to wrap around the giant's legs. Vines as wide as towers snapped around its arms, tightening with crushing force. Branches speared forward, latching onto shoulders and neck, pulling the giant off balance.
"Stay down!" Leo's voice thundered, layered with the echo of the forest itself.
The giant staggered as the roots dragged it to one knee, stone exploding outward from the pressure. It thrashed violently, muscles bulging grotesquely as it tried to tear free—but Leo's power only grew stronger the longer he remained connected to the earth.
From his back, entire groves burst forth, trunks intertwining into massive restraining pillars that slammed down onto the giant's torso. Flowers bloomed along the bindings, their petals glowing as they siphoned moisture and vitality from the air itself, weakening the raging colossus.
For the first time, the giant was forced still.
It roared again—this time in frustration. Leo pressed his advantage.
"Mori Mori—Verdant Bind!"
The forest answered in full. The lab was gone now—utterly consumed. Where once metal and machinery had stood, there was only life. A vast underground jungle exploded into existence, roots locking together into an unbreakable lattice. Massive wooden fists formed from braided trunks and slammed into the giant's chest again and again, driving it deeper into the earth.
Each blow landed with the weight of nature's wrath. The giant's movements slowed. Its breathing grew heavy. Cracks formed along its skin where bark-covered fists struck, and for a moment—just a moment—it seemed as though the ancient terror might finally be subdued.
But then—something changed. The giant stopped struggling. Leo felt it instantly. The roots binding the giant began to creak—not from brute force, but from resistance. The life energy flowing through them met something cold, dense, unyielding. The giant's muscles tensed. Its skin darkened. Not with shadow—but with will.
"...No," Leo whispered.
The giant's forearms turned jet black. Armament Haki.
With a thunderous roar, the ancient giant flexed—and the forest bindings shattered.
Roots exploded into splinters. Vines snapped like twine. Massive branches were torn free and hurled aside as the giant surged upright, its entire upper body now coated in crude but overwhelming Armament Haki.
The cavern reeled. Leo in his titan form staggered back as the feedback rippled through his forest body, bark cracking along his arms. This wasn't technique—it was instinct. Pure survival. A warrior's will forged in an age when Haki had been wielded as naturally as breath. The giant slammed its blackened fist into the ground.
The shockwave annihilated everything in its path. Entire sections of forest were pulverized, trees reduced to splinters, roots ripped free from the stone. Leo barely managed to anchor himself, roots plunging deeper as the impact blasted outward like a cannon. The giant charged again—faster now, more focused.
Its fist collided with Leo's chest. The sound was catastrophic. Wood splintered. Bark shattered. Leo was driven backward, skidding across the cavern as entire groves were torn loose from his body. He crashed into the far wall, stone collapsing around him as dust and debris filled the air. For the first time, Leo groaned in pain.
"So… strong," he muttered.
The giant didn't relent. It grabbed a massive chunk of bedrock and hurled it like a spear. Leo raised his arms, forming a towering wooden shield—but the Haki-coated projectile punched straight through, exploding behind him in a rain of rubble.
The ancient giant loomed closer, each step deliberate, killing intent burning behind its eyes.
Leo straightened. Leaves fell from his body like rain. Then—he smiled.
"Then I'll just have to grow stronger too."
The ground trembled again—but this time, not from destruction. From growth. Leo slammed his roots deeper, tapping into every ounce of life energy beneath Green Bit. The forest surged back, thicker, denser, harder. Bark layered upon bark, reinforced with Armament Haki of his own—rudimentary, imperfect, but resolute.
"Mori Mori—Ironwood Form!"
His arms darkened as his Haki coated the wood, turning living trunks into weapons harder than steel. Vines reformed—shorter, thicker, built for impact rather than restraint. The giant swung. Leo met it head-on. Their fists collided, Haki crashing against Haki, shockwaves ripping through the cavern and blasting chunks of earth into the air. The impact echoed like thunder, and both titans were forced back a step.
Again.
They clashed again and again—forest and flesh, life and will—each strike reshaping the battlefield. Leo adapted constantly, regenerating faster than the giant could destroy, shaping weapons mid-fight: spears of compressed wood, hammers of braided trunks, shields grown and discarded in seconds.
The giant answered with raw power, every blow infused with primal Armament, tearing through defenses with terrifying efficiency. The cavern was no longer a battlefield. It was a war zone. And above, far beyond the chaos below, Green Bit itself trembled—unaware that beneath its roots, legends were colliding once more. Two ancient forces locked in combat.
****
Little Garden, Grand Line
CLANG—!
The sound was not metal on flesh. It was will colliding with will. A shockwave burst outward as Brogy's colossal blade met Rob Lucci's fist, the impact ripping through the air like a cannon blast. Trees bent outward, stone cracked beneath their feet, and the clouds above the island split apart as if the sky itself recoiled.
The blade stopped. Stopped dead in midair.
"Aaaaah—!"
Lucci roared, his voice raw and feral, veins standing out along his arm as his small fist trembled against the impossible weight pressing down on it. His body screamed at him to yield—to break—but something deeper refused.
For the first time in his life, Lucci felt it. Not strength. Not speed. Not technique. Something far more primal. Something his soul had clawed into existence. Black lightning cracked through the air. The ground beneath Lucci's feet spiderwebbed outward as a pressure unlike anything the island had felt before surged forth. It wasn't explosive—it was dominant, crushing, suffocating. The kind of presence that did not ask for acknowledgment.
It commanded it. Dorry's eyes widened.
"…The kid really did it," he breathed, disbelief shaking his voice. "He awakened it. He awakened Haoshoku… by training his spirit."
Brogy's blade trembled. Not from Lucci's strength—he knew better than anyone how vast the gulf between them still was. No, the trembling came from something else entirely. A pressure that pressed directly against his own will, challenging it.
Dorry clenched his fists, eyes locked onto the small human standing before a giant's blade, unmoving.
"I've seen monsters before," he muttered. "Plenty of them. But this… this isn't supposed to be possible."
Kureha stood with her arms crossed, coat fluttering violently in the storm of power erupting around Lucci. Her sharp eyes narrowed—not in fear, but in something dangerously close to awe.
"A true monster in the making," she said quietly.
She had lived for over a century. She had seen emperors rise and fall, legends carved into history, and kings born with the Supreme Color blazing in their veins from the moment they first cried. Every single one of them.
Conqueror's Haki was an inheritance. A crown etched into one's blood. Something you were born with—or never had at all. At least… that was what the world believed. Kureha's fingers tightened slightly.
"Every Conqueror I've ever known was born carrying it," she continued, voice steady but heavy. "Even me. That's how it's always been."
Her gaze sharpened as black lightning continued to arc around Lucci's body, crawling across his shoulders, his spine, his clenched jaw.
"But this boy…" she murmured. "He wasn't."
She could tell. With absolute certainty. This wasn't a flame that had lain dormant, waiting to be ignited. This was something forged. Lucci's mind was burning. Years of relentless training. Years of pain, of isolation, of forcing his body and spirit past limits that should have broken him.
Years of refusing to bow—to anyone, to anything.
Every time the world told him no, he had answered with effort. Every time his body failed, he had demanded more.
And now— The world answered back. Lucci's roar deepened, no longer strained but defiant, as the black lightning surged violently outward. The pressure slammed into Dorry and Brogy like a tidal wave, forcing even the giants to brace themselves.
Brogy's eyes widened as his blade was pushed back. Not by strength. By presence.
"…He's pushing me," Brogy growled, teeth bared—not in anger, but exhilaration. "Without even transforming."
Lucci's fist drove forward another inch. Then another. The clash cracked the air again, the shockwave tearing a trench through the ground behind Brogy. Leaves were stripped from trees. Stones lifted and shattered midair.
Lucci stood at the center of it all—small, bloodied, shaking—and unbowed. Black lightning crowned him like a broken halo. This wasn't the awakening of a king born to rule. This was the birth of a conqueror who had ripped the crown from the heavens with sheer will. History had said it was impossible.
And yet, before their eyes, the impossible had happened. For the first time since time immemorial, someone who was not born a conqueror had become one.
"No… no, I can't let Dorry hog all the excitement."
Brogy's laughter boomed like distant thunder as he rose to his feet, blood roaring in his veins. His massive frame loomed against the sky as he reached for his axe, fingers tightening around the familiar haft. For over a month now, he had watched this human boy—day after day—throw himself into brutal sparring sessions against giants who could crush mountains.
And today— Today, the boy had crossed a line no one was ever meant to cross.
"I need to witness the birth of a Supreme King myself!" Brogy roared, eyes blazing as he charged forward.
The ground shook with every step as he barreled toward the battlefield, axe already arcing upward, its massive blade catching the light as it howled through the air. The clash between Lucci and Dorry was already shaking the island—but Brogy had no intention of merely watching history unfold. He wanted to be part of it.
"BROGY-san—!" Robin started, instinctively turning toward Kureha. "Lady Kureha, shouldn't you stop him?!"
Kureha only chuckled, adjusting her coat as her sharp eyes followed the charging giant.
"Don't be foolish," she said calmly. "Stopping him would be pointless."
She watched as Brogy closed the distance, his axe descending toward Lucci with titanic force.
"That brat needs this," Kureha continued. "If he's to truly grasp that power, he needs to feel it—tested, crushed, pushed to its limit. Staying on this island longer was the right call."
Her lips curled into a knowing grin.
"And besides… once giants like Dorry and Brogy catch the scent of something like this, there's no quenching their battlelust."
The axe came down. Lucci's eyes snapped wide as his Observation Haki screamed a warning. He twisted midair, barely avoiding the full weight of Brogy's strike as the axe carved a canyon into the earth, the shockwave ripping outward in a violent ring.
"Gahaha! That's it, kid!" Brogy bellowed. "Show me that will again!"
Black lightning erupted from Lucci's body once more, arcing wildly as his feet slammed into the ground. The pressure intensified—raw, unstable, but undeniable. The air itself bent around him, weaker creatures collapsing unconscious at the edges of the battlefield.
Dorry laughed, gripping his blade tighter. "Looks like you've got both of us now, human!"
The battlefield fell unnaturally silent. Not because the wind had stopped—no, the wind screamed, ripped apart by invisible pressure—but because every living thing within the island for miles felt it.
A will. Raw. Untamed. Newly born.
Black lightning crawled across the ground around Rob Lucci's feet, cracking stone as if the earth itself recoiled from his presence. His chest rose and fell in steady breaths, every muscle coiled tight, every nerve screaming awareness. His eyes were no longer those of a boy sparring with giants.
They were the eyes of something that refused to kneel. Dorry and Brogy stood before him like living mountains. Two titans of Elbaf. Veterans of a hundred years of war. Their massive weapons rested at their sides, not out of mercy—but anticipation. The pressure rolling off Lucci stirred something ancient in their blood. Dorry laughed first, a booming sound that shook the sky.
"Gabababa! I feel it, Brogy. That glare—reminds me of the old days."
Brogy grinned, teeth like ivory cliffs. "Aye. That boy's will is biting back."
They raised their weapons in unison. And the world exploded. Brogy moved first. His axe descended like a falling star, the sheer mass of it splitting the clouds overhead. The ground screamed as Lucci vanished an instant before impact, the axe obliterating the earth in a cataclysmic explosion of stone and dust.
Lucci reappeared midair—directly above the axe. His foot came down coated in Armament Haki so dense it gleamed obsidian.
CRACK.
The impact didn't stop the axe—but it bent its trajectory, forcing Brogy's weapon to carve sideways instead of straight down. The shockwave ripped outward, flattening trees miles away. Lucci flipped backward, landing lightly despite the tremor threatening to tear his legs from under him.
Before he could breathe— Dorry was already there. The giant's sword swept horizontally, its edge screaming through the air. Lucci crossed both arms, Armament flaring, and caught the blade barehanded. The collision sent black lightning ripping through the sky.
For a fraction of a second— A human youth stood braced against a giant's blade. Not by strength. By will. Dorry's eyes widened.
"Hoh…!"
Lucci's feet dug trenches into the earth as the force tried to crush him flat. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth—but his eyes burned brighter.
"I won't—!" Lucci snarled. "—be defeated by the like of you…giant or not..!"
His Conqueror's Haki erupted outward, raw and uncontrolled, slamming into Dorry like a battering ram. The giant staggered a half-step back—a half-step—and Brogy roared in disbelief.
"He pushed you!"
Lucci twisted, releasing the blade and launching himself upward in a corkscrew motion. His fist shot forward, Armament layered upon Armament, his newly awakened Haoshoku bleeding into it like wildfire.
BOOM.
The punch struck Dorry's jaw. Not hard enough to fell him— But hard enough to make him feel it.
The air detonated. Dorry laughed even as he skidded backward, boots carving ravines through the ground.
"Gabababa! That sting—!"
Brogy didn't wait. He slammed his axe down again—but this time, Lucci ran up the weapon, sprinting along the flat of the blade as if gravity had lost meaning. Each step cracked steel underfoot. Brogy's eyes widened. Lucci leapt.
Midair, he twisted, delivering a downward heel strike infused with both Armament and the unrefined surge of his Conqueror's Haki.
CRASH.
The blow struck Brogy's shoulder, forcing the giant to one knee as the ground beneath him collapsed entirely. Silence followed. Then— Brogy laughed.
"HAH! That's it! That's the weight of a king!"
Lucci landed, chest heaving, sweat pouring down his face. His body screamed in protest. His haki flared wildly, unstable, tearing at him from the inside. He was burning himself alive. And he didn't care. The giants advanced together now. No restraint. No mercy.
Dorry and Brogy attacked in perfect synchronization—blade and axe crossing in an X meant to erase everything in its path. The sky split open as their weapons descended. Lucci stood his ground. He inhaled. And for the first time— He focused. His Conqueror's Haki didn't explode outward.
It condensed. The black lightning drew inward, wrapping around his body, his arms, his spine. The pressure sharpened, no longer wild—but absolute. His eyes locked onto the incoming weapons.
"Come," he whispered. He thrust both fists forward.
BOOOOOOM.
The collision was cataclysmic. Black lightning erupted in a storm that swallowed the battlefield. The impact shattered the earth, sent shockwaves rippling across the island, and split the clouds into a spiraling vortex overhead.
For a heartbeat— The three figures were locked in place. A human youth. Two giant legends. Neither side yielding. Then— The ground gave way. Lucci was blasted backward, tumbling end over end before slamming into a cliff face hard enough to embed him halfway into stone. He coughed blood, vision swimming, arms trembling violently.
Dorry and Brogy stood breathing heavily, weapons lowered—but their expressions were no longer amused. They were solemn.
Brogy exhaled. "He didn't break."
Dorry nodded slowly. "No mythical zoan transformation. No borrowed power."
Lucci tore himself free from the rock, staggering but upright. His legs shook. His haki flickered—but it was still there. Still burning.
"I'm not done," he said hoarsely.
The giants grinned.
"Neither are we," Dorry replied.
Above them, the sky thundered—not from weather, but from the echo of three wills colliding.
This was not a spar anymore. It was a declaration. That even the laws of birthright could be defied—if one's will was sharp enough to cut the heavens.
Lucci exhaled slowly, shoulders rising and falling. Two giants. Two legends. And him. His body trembled—not with fear, but exhilaration. Further away from the battleground, standing slightly behind from Robin and Kureha, a small figure stared at the scene with wide, shining eyes.
"Master…"
Law's voice was quiet, steady, yet filled with wonder as he tugged lightly at Kureha's sleeve. His gaze never left Lucci, never wavered from the storm of black lightning and clashing titans.
"Do you think…" he hesitated, swallowing hard, "…that someday I could awaken Haoshoku too? Like Brother Lucci?"
The question hung in the air. Kureha looked down at him—not immediately answering. Her eyes softened just a fraction as she followed his gaze back to the battlefield, where Lucci stood between two giants, will blazing bright enough to shake the heavens. After a moment, she smirked.
"That depends," she said. "Are you willing to bleed for it? Break for it? Tear yourself apart and stand back up anyway?"
She leaned closer, tapping Law lightly on the forehead.
"Because what you're watching isn't a miracle. It's the result of a will that refused to bend—no matter how many times the world tried to crush it."
The sky split with another thunderous clash as Lucci roared and surged forward once more, black lightning exploding outward as giants answered him in kind. Kureha straightened, eyes gleaming.
"Remember this moment, kid," she said. "You're witnessing history."
The birth of a king. Not born— But forged.