"I-Is that story just now... really true...!?"
"The 'Pirate Literary Master' is... the 'Golden Lion's' daughter!?"
"Headquarters! Headquarters! This is Sabaody Archipelago... we've got breaking news! P-Put us through to the whole world!"
The Pirate Literary Master, Venerdi Toto Sue, was the biological daughter of the legendary Great Pirate, Shiki the Golden Lion.
The shocking revelation sent the citizens watching from Sabaody Archipelago into an uproar.
And naturally, that same shock rippled through the battlefield.
"G-G-G-G-G-G-Golden Lion!?"
The prisoners were stunned, of course, but Buggy, who currently stood as their de facto leader, took the hardest hit. He'd seen the Golden Lion in person, had even fought against him during the Edd War back in his Roger Pirates days. His shock was on another level entirely.
That terrifying pirate he'd met back then had a daughter, and she was the very same girl who'd been right there with them until moments ago.
Oh, and he'd been eating her home cooking just a little while ago.
"Literary Girl was the 'Golden Lion's'... I-I had no idea-ble...! Straw Hat Boy, did you hear anything about...?"
"Hah, hah... no, nothing... wait, who's 'Kinjishi' anyway?"
"My, my, to think that girl had such origins... I never would have guessed."
"A parent-child duo of Impel Down escapees, huh... Kuhahahaha, bloodlines really are something else. What rotten luck for Magellan."
"One hell of a bombshell just got dropped, yo... what do we do, Blume?"
"Well, even if you ask me that... I'm just thinking I'll ask her about all sorts of things later, that's about it."
The companions from the Impel Down breakout each reacted with surprise in their own way (though some didn't quite grasp what the fuss was about), yet none of them stopped moving, pressing forward without pause.
On the other hand, the very few who had already known were, naturally, the picture of calm.
"Well, it's only natural this would happen, I suppose... but good grief, it's pandemonium everywhere."
"So Grandpa really is famous, huh. Seeing everyone react like this, I get it now."
"Ahahaha... well, of course people'd be shocked if something like this just got dropped on them out of nowhere."
'So it's been revealed... Things are going to be noisy around Sue for a while. But if that's the case... hmm... then perhaps it's better to just...'
Those reeling from the shock were, of course, not limited to the prisoners. Marines, the Shichibukai, everyone felt it too.
"...Hina... stunned...!!"
"First Straw Hat, now this... one after another... is this some kind of class reunion for children of notorious criminals...!?"
"Fuffuffu...! The son of Roger, the son of Dragon, and now the Daughter of the Golden Lion... this battlefield is turning into something truly fitting for a turning point in history!"
"Ohhh... so she was Shiki's kid. Doesn't look a thing like him... Gurararara."
As each reacted to the revelation with varying degrees of shock and agitation, the woman at the very center of the commotion, Sue, was in the middle of sweeping through Marine after Marine with the drawn Seven Star Sword.
When they charged with swords raised, she deflected with ease and cut them down in the same motion.
When they braced behind shields, she cleaved through shield and soldier alike.
When they fell back and tried to shoot her from a distance, she dodged or sliced the bullets from the air, then closed the gap with a Flying Slash or paper shuriken.
When they surrounded her from all directions to overwhelm her with numbers, a tornado of Paper Flakes erupted around her, shredding and scattering every last one of them.
Each time the jade blade traced the arc of its seven gleaming stars, Marines who held the elite ranks of Junior Officers and Field Officers at Marine Headquarters were cut down in a single stroke.
Just as Fleet Admiral Sengoku had said, her Bounty did not reflect her true strength. Sue pressed forward without so much as flinching against the best they had.
"Out of the way! I'll crush her!"
Perhaps deciding this would never end otherwise, at the very moment Sue spread her wings and took flight, two Giant Race soldiers stepped forward from the rear.
One held the rank of Vice Admiral, and combined with the formidable physique of the Giant Race, hailed as "born warriors," this was a fighter who ranked among the most powerful forces at Marine Headquarters.
As if swatting a flying insect from the air, they brought down their respective weapons, a spiked club and a greatsword, trying to knock Sue out of the sky. She shifted into paper and evaded with ease.
Moving swiftly to a position slightly away, Sue hovered at a spot where the two Giants were lined up perfectly one behind the other. In her free hand, the one not holding the Seven Star Sword, she formed a Paper Sword.
Its tip pointed directly at both Giants. In that instant:
"Paper-Killing Spear!!"
"Guohh!?"
"Guaaahh!"
The blade extended with the speed of an arrow, piercing straight through both Giants' bodies.
It kept going, embedding itself in the ground beyond them, pinning both in place where they stood.
"Grr... y-you think something like this can stop us...!?"
They tried to break free by snapping or tearing the paper spear through sheer strength, but its durability far exceeded their expectations. Worse, when one moved, it widened the other's wound, drawing a cry of agony that made the first instinctively ease up.
And Sue's attack was far from over.
Right before the immobilized Giants' eyes, Sue released a torrent of paper from her body, cascading out with the force of a waterfall, then condensed it into shape.
When the two Giants saw what took form, something nearly rivaling their own towering height, even they couldn't hide their shock.
At the same time, far away on the execution platform, Fleet Admiral Sengoku and Vice Admiral Garp had been watching the fight unfold. The sight made both of them grimace.
"Oi, oi, Sengoku, that's..."
"Yeah... brings back memories I'd rather forget...! Is that supposed to be inspired by that man's technique or something...?"
What had taken shape was a host of lion heads, sculpted from massive quantities of paper.
Fangs bared, each one radiating ferocity and terror through sheer craftsmanship alone. The realism was so vivid it almost seemed like roars were echoing from their maws. The two Giants shuddered as those glaring faces bore down on them, and then:
"Paper Lion Threat... Harumaki!!"
The paper lions lunged.
Still pinned in place, the Giants swung their spiked club and greatsword wildly, trying to cut and smash them away, but these were not solid objects to begin with. Each strike only scattered them momentarily before they reformed.
And while one Giant fought off a single lion, another face clamped down from the opposite side.
"U-OAAAAAHHH!!!"
In the blink of an eye, both were engulfed. The lion-shaped torrents of paper latched on, swallowed them whole, shredding as they went, wrapping around them from every side.
Within seconds, both massive bodies had vanished from sight, encased in hemispherical domes of paper like enormous snow huts.
And then:
BOOM! BOOM-BOOM-BOOM, BA-BA-BA-BA-BOOOOOM!!
The vast quantities of explosives and cannonballs packed within the paper, supplies that had been cleaned out wholesale from Impel Down's armory and the warships, detonated inside.
Sealed within paper with no gaps, at virtually point-blank range, with nowhere for the shockwaves or blast to escape, the two Giants took the equivalent of carpet bombing across their entire bodies from every direction.
Before long, when the paper gently peeled away and released them, they were charred black head to toe, drenched in blood, battered beyond recognition, eyes rolled back. They crashed to the ground with a tremor and didn't move again.
By any measure, critical injuries beyond recovery.
On top of that, the large-scale combustion within the sealed space seemed to have caused oxygen deprivation. Their breathing came in thin, wheezing gasps, faint and unreliable.
"Even the Giants... taken down that easily..."
"And that technique just now looked exactly like the ones in the files on the 'Golden Lion'... so it really is true!"
The Giant Race was one of the Marines' greatest military assets and a key defense of the skies against flying Ability Users.
Seeing two of them brought down at once sent a chill through the Marines and a surge of energy through the pirates.
"That woman's got some real chops!"
"That story about her being the 'Golden Lion's' daughter... looks like it's the real deal."
"Roger's archrival, right? And yet she came to save Ace... well, that's their parents' generation. No point worrying about it."
"The Giants are gone and that whole section's wide open now! Pour in!"
"Don't let them through! Reform the lines and stop those pirates!"
"Damn it... the 'Pirate Literary Master' is stronger than projected...! Not even the Giant Squad could stop her!"
"Don't bunch up! Those Paper Flakes will take you all out at once!"
Trembling or not, the Marines took up their weapons and held the line.
But it was plain that no one at the rank-and-file level, or even the Field Officers level, had the ability to stop her.
Several Vice Admirals readied their weapons and began to step forward, realizing they would have to intervene themselves, when a single Shadow dashed through the Marine ranks.
"Stand aside. That one is my prey."
"!"
The next instant, someone kicked off the ground and launched skyward. The sole woman among the Shichibukai.
The Pirate Empress, Boa Hancock.
With the extraordinary leaping power generated by her lithe legs, she soared up to where Sue hovered in the air and delivered a Haki-infused flying kick.
Sue noticed just in time to guard, but a follow-up axe kick connected squarely, sending her plummeting to the ground at high speed.
Hancock dove after her, plunging into the cloud of dust that billowed up on impact.
"Hey, the Pirate Empress just went after her!?"
"She knocked the Pirate Literary Master out of the sky!"
"More like... she went charging in with incredible intensity, like she was really fired up..."
"She said something about 'my prey'... could they be rivals? Some kind of hostile relationship?"
"If so, that works in our favor. We can leave the Pirate Literary Master to the Pirate Empress...!"
"...They were both incredibly beautiful, though."
"Hey! This is hardly the time for... well, yeah, I mean, they were, but still."
Right at that very moment, outside the cloud of dust where the Marines were having that conversation:
"Owww... that's mean, attacking out of nowhere like that, Hancock."
"Silence, ye fool. Ye sent one measly letter and vanished... this is punishment for making me worry."
"Sorry, sorry... I mean, it was a total ambush, and Akainu was just too much, even running away was... Thanks for worrying about me, though. Luffy told me. You were concerned about me too, weren't you?"
"Hmph... ye had better show your face at Amazon Lily afterward, hear me? Sonia, Marie, Elder Nyon, they were all worried sick... go see them and put their minds at ease properly."
"Roger that. But more importantly... you came here with a reason, right? Something you need?"
"Perceptive as ever, and I am grateful for it. I wish to lend my strength to Luffy... to the one I love. Help me, Sue."
"Of course, gladly. But we can't exactly fight openly as allies... so we'll need to be clever about it."
"Hmm... I care nothing for what any man besides Luffy might say, but yes, fewer complications would be preferable. In that case..."
As she spoke, Hancock summoned a sword made of pink light into her hand.
Then, with a distinctive, dance-like movement, she leveled its point at Sue and assumed her stance.
Sue had been thinking the same thing. A grin spread across her face as she mirrored the movement and raised her own sword.
No words were needed.
No practice, not even a single word of coordination.
Their friendship had begun right here, with the Sword Dance.
"How about we dance again, for the first time in a while!"
"Sounds great, I'm in! Let's make it flashy, fierce, and cool!"
"Fool! If we are to do this, it shall be elegant, graceful, and beautiful!"
"Then let's do both!"
"Gladly!"
The next instant, the thunderous crash and shockwave of two blades colliding erupted outward, reaching even the Marines who had been watching from a safe distance.
The cloud of dust that had shrouded the area was blown away in a single moment.
To be continued...