—Real World—
Admiral Kisame brought overwhelming shock to audiences watching the Sky Screen across the world. Hoshigaki Kisame represented the kind of straightforward, unpretentious powerhouse who crushed the three Sweet Commanders of the Big Mom Pirates at every conceivable level—technical skill, raw power, tactical acumen, and psychological warfare combined into absolute dominance.
The so-called water-style ninjutsu gave observers the same impression as ocean-style techniques—performed at incredible speed, deploying astonishing volumes of water, functioning as the natural nemesis of Devil Fruit users. The implications proved terrifying for anyone who'd consumed one of the cursed treasures.
Pirates like Charlotte Cracker and Charlotte Smoothie, each carrying bounties approaching one billion Beli, represented extremely prominent presences in the New World's second half. These top-ranked officers among the Yonko crews commanded genuine respect from most observers. Yet even they proved utterly helpless before Hoshigaki Kisame's overwhelming capabilities.
Charlotte Katakuri had deployed everything in his arsenal during that battle—every hidden technique, every desperate gambit. His Devil Fruit's awakening. His Observation Haki's future sight. His Conqueror's Haki infusion. His advanced Armament Haki hardening. The strongest Sweet Commander had held nothing back, yet still couldn't escape the fate of being casually defeated like a training dummy facing a master.
The scene on Cake Island where Charlotte Katakuri collapsed and became surrounded by dozens of ravenous water sharks—the image of him being systematically devoured while maintaining stoic silence—made Big Mom's children watching in the present shudder with visceral horror. The originally lively discussion atmosphere filling the family gathering hall fell into profound silence, as though someone had dropped a funeral shroud over the assembled crowd.
"Water-style techniques can defend and attack simultaneously," Charlotte Perospero muttered, his usually confident voice subdued to near-whisper. "They can create perfect water clones indistinguishable from the original. They can generate massive quantities of water creatures. The main body doesn't possess any weaknesses from Devil Fruit consumption. How does anyone fight this monster?"
As Charlotte Linlin's first son, Charlotte Perospero had been surpassed by Charlotte Katakuri in terms of pure combat strength years ago, failing to achieve Sweet Commander rank despite his seniority. However, his Pero Pero no Mi ability remained highly desirable, and he possessed the kind of calculating intelligence that didn't advertise itself through flashy displays.
Today he showed genuinely timid expression when discussing Admiral Kisame. Although the strength Hoshigaki Kisame displayed represented merely the tip of the iceberg—not even his full capabilities—it already proved outrageously overwhelming.
When deployed against the Big Mom Pirates specifically, most food-related Devil Fruit users would suffer crushing defeats. They all shared a common weakness more severe than typical fruit users: enhanced vulnerability to water immersion beyond the standard Devil Fruit curse.
"The battle was so brutal," Charlotte Daifuku observed, his voice tight with anxiety. "Why didn't Mother appear to intervene? Did something happen to her in the future timeline?"
Judging from the broadcast's conspicuous details—Charlotte Katakuri deliberately avoiding any mention of their mother, Hoshigaki Kisame expressing anticipation about fighting Yonko Charlotte Linlin yet never actually encountering her—all these factors combined made it disturbingly difficult not to associate the worst possible scenarios with Big Mom's absence.
If something catastrophic happened to Charlotte Linlin, the Big Mom Pirates faced imminent danger of complete organizational collapse. Only while their mother remained alive and healthy could she support this massive extended family through sheer personal strength, deterring outsiders from attempting to seize Totto Land's territories. This family could lose anyone—any child, any Sweet Commander, any officer—but they absolutely could not lose the matriarch holding everything together.
"Something doesn't make sense," Charlotte Oven interjected, his analytical mind catching an inconsistency. "Brother Katakuri sustained such catastrophic injuries in that battle. Why would he participate in an even larger-scale conflict merely one year later? It's impossible for injuries that severe to recover so quickly."
The massive man expressed genuine worry for his fellow brother. Charlotte Katakuri appeared so seriously wounded in the future broadcast, yet somehow he participated in the far more dangerous assault on the Holy Land Mary Geoise. Facing an equal number of Marine Admirals in that coming battle represented virtual suicide given his condition.
Hoshigaki Kisame would invade Totto Land approximately five years in the future, roughly concurrent with the Dressrosa incident timeline. One year after that, the world-shaking Mary Geoise incident would occur—the massive pirate alliance assault on the Celestial Dragons' holy city.
Conservatively estimating the time interval between these two major conflicts, perhaps no more than twelve months separated them. Charlotte Katakuri had become a cripple under Admiral Kisame's devastating assault. How had their brother managed to regenerate severed limbs in such a compressed timeframe? This transcended the Mochi Mochi no Mi's documented capabilities entirely.
Charlotte Katakuri himself couldn't help but smile bitterly at the analysis, self-deprecation coloring his expression. "Regarding Conqueror's Haki infusion—I apparently learned a combat technique that only Mother currently possesses. Yet even with that advancement, I was humiliated like a drowned dog before the Marine Admiral."
Five years in the future, he would indeed become considerably stronger. But this particular confrontation proved utterly one-sided. Hoshigaki Kisame stood like an insurmountable mountain directly blocking the Big Mom Pirates' path forward, his shadow falling across their entire organization.
This monster's ability to manipulate water approached something unprecedented and unmatched in recorded history. Historical documents contained absolutely no references to fish-men possessing such catastrophic capabilities.
If fish-men in ancient times could deploy water-style techniques as freely as Hoshigaki Kisame demonstrated, then the modern world wouldn't be dominated by human-centric order. The ruling status of the two species would be completely reversed—the weaker tribes becoming slaves to the stronger ones, just as humans had once enslaved fish-men and merfolk.
Sea Knight Jinbe's performance defending against Charlotte Smoothie and Charlotte Brûlée now made perfect sense to everyone present. Even if both women had joined the battle, they would only have made circumstances worse, losing two more lives pointlessly without affecting the outcome.
"Perhaps fish-men understand fish-men better than we ever could," Charlotte Smoothie remarked, self-deprecating laughter escaping her lips. "Hoshigaki Kisame didn't attack us two women after restraining us. That restraint represented tremendous mercy we didn't deserve."
As the least combat-focused Sweet Commander, she hadn't expected to appear even more pathetic in the Sky Screen broadcast. The display made the outside world question her strength as a Sweet Commander, wondering whether she genuinely deserved a bounty approaching one billion Beli.
Admiral Kisame hadn't even granted the woman opportunity to deploy her Shibo Shibo no Mi abilities properly. He'd nearly drowned her with a single water-style technique before she could mount meaningful resistance. Charlotte Smoothie genuinely needed to practice breath-holding underwater in the future—otherwise, if she encountered another water manipulation specialist, she probably wouldn't survive long enough for rescue to arrive. Pure luck had saved her this time, nothing more.
When the Big Mom Pirates fell into collective despair watching their strongest fighter being devoured alive, the appearance of their mother's new daughter rekindled fragile hope among the assembled siblings.
The Sky Screen provided an extended close-up of a young girl with long black hair cascading down her back. If one calculated her actual current age in the present timeline, she couldn't be older than five years—yet her face reflected maturity far beyond her chronological years, innocence replaced by something harder and colder.
Most strikingly, her eyes—pitch black irises containing distinctive tomoe patterns rotating slowly—marked her as something that absolutely shouldn't exist in this era.
"What a precocious child!" Charlotte Linlin exclaimed, her voice carrying genuine maternal warmth despite her monstrous reputation. "Is she my new daughter? How absolutely delightful!"
The Yonko possessed extraordinary affection for children despite her volatile temperament and episodes of violent madness. This girl named Hikaru appeared as pretty as a porcelain doll, her aesthetic completely different from Big Mom's other children. She stood out from the enormous extended family like a black pearl among ordinary stones.
Naming the girl "Hikaru"—meaning light or brightness—carried beautiful symbolic weight. This name allowed Charlotte Linlin to sense clearly that her future self would invest tremendous expectations in this particular daughter, perhaps seeing her as something special even among dozens of siblings.
"The Uchiha clan?" Charlotte Pudding mused aloud, her third eye hidden beneath carefully arranged bangs. "Of course—Mother must marry a surviving clan member from Wano Country in the future. That means Hikaru very likely inherited their bloodline directly."
As a member of the Three-Eye Tribe herself, it didn't surprise Charlotte Pudding that their mother would acquire another daughter from the legendary "red-eyed clan." After all, Charlotte Linlin stood far ahead in this ocean's metaphorical competition for collecting rare bloodlines through strategic marriages.
As a mother who'd given birth to children representing most ethnic groups scattered across the seas—long-legs, long-arms, snake-necks, fish-men, giants (attempted), Three-Eyes, and now apparently Uchiha—Charlotte Linlin represented a genuinely remarkable woman in every conceivable sense. Such ambition and reproductive success proved rare throughout recorded history.
But what did the Uchiha bloodline actually do? What abilities did those distinctive eyes grant? And more importantly—could this five-year-old girl truly turn the tide against a monster like Hoshigaki Kisame?