Morning — Mock Town, Jaya Island.
Inside the noisy, dimly lit tavern, Marshall D. Teach—better known as "Blackbeard"—burst into a loud, booming laugh, slamming a thick fist onto the wooden table.
"Bwahahaha! Hey, take a look at this! 'White Emperor' Darian's bounty just took another leap—it's up to 150 million Berries! And Crocodile officially had his Warlord title stripped by the World Government! The newspaper printed the new bounty right alongside the execution report... looks like Darian really did take down that sand bastard all by himself! Meanwhile, this Straw Hat Luffy kid isn't doing half bad either—the papers say he raided a kingdom, boosting his own bounty to 100 million. Gahahaha! It really is an era of monsters rising up!"
Dressed like a silent-film actor with a deathly pale complexion, Laffitte twirled his cane, offering a polite, eerie bow. "Hohoho! Everyone is quite eager to claim their moment in the spotlight! But I firmly believe that only you, Captain, possess the strength required to ascend the vacant throne."
Teach's chest puffed out as he grinned, showcasing his missing teeth. "Gahahaha! These young brats are far too impatient."
Over in the corner, Van Augur closed the newspaper with an unreadable expression. "Augur, now that Crocodile has been ousted from the Seven Warlords, there's a strong chance the World Government will offer the vacant seat to this White Emperor. If we want to capture the Marines' attention, could we simply hunt down a Warlord candidate like him to climb to the top?"
The oversized "Champion," Jesus Burgess, threw his head back and let out a roaring laugh. "Wahaha! Don't be foolish, Van Augur! If Captain did something like that, the Navy would never trust him enough to grant him Warlord status in the first place!"
Teach blinked, looking at Burgess as if he'd just witnessed a miracle. "Well, I'll be damned, Burgess! Since when did your brain start working so well? Gahahaha!"
"He's correct," Van Augur added evenly, adjusting his scope. "The Marines will only tolerate a single structural disruption at a time. Stripping a title twice in quick succession would completely destroy the reputation of the Warlord system."
"Not... cough cough... bad logic..." Doc Q wheezed out from the back of his sick, emaciated horse, his long tongue lolling out as if he were on the verge of breathing his last breath. "Fate... works in strange... cough..."
"Hey, Doc! Don't you dare die on us now, Doc!" Burgess barked back.
Afternoon — The Waters Off Jaya Island.
Darian, currently standing on the deck of the Little Fish, had no idea his bounty had taken another massive jump.
After escaping the temporal vortex of the Rainbow Mist and returning from the Naruto world, news coo birds rarely frequented the localized weather anomalies around Ruluka Island, leaving his crew largely disconnected from recent global news.
As the vessel approached the coastal waters of Jaya, the volatile Grand Line weather gradually stabilized into a calm, warm ocean breeze.
Along the deck, the women were lounging comfortably in their swimsuits, soaking in the sun while Darian continued his sword drills, holding Kiyotsuki in a steady guard.
Alvida, wearing a low-cut bikini, leaned against the bow railing near Nami. "Hey, Navigator... aren't we at Jaya yet? As a former pirate captain, I've heard this place is an absolute hive of scum and lawlessness."
"We're almost there," Nami replied, adjusting her sun hat as she checked her Eternal Pose. "The atmospheric pressure and marine currents have completely stabilized—the island is just beyond the horizon."
Near the lounge chairs, Marianne was relaxing with a glass of juice, watching a flock of seagulls soaring through the clear blue sky. Mikita stretched beside her, enjoying the warm breeze. "Ah... it feels so warm! Jaya must be a Spring Island."
THUD! THUD!
Without warning, two soaring seagulls plunged out of the sky, slamming onto the wooden deck just feet from Marianne, spraying blood across the polished wood.
"Kyaaa!" Marianne shrieked, backing away in terror. "Sister Mikita! The birds... they were shot!"
"Shot?!" Mikita gasped, instantly scanning the open horizon. "That's impossible! There isn't a single ship or person in sight for miles!"
A Few Seconds Prior — Mock Town Rooftop.
Standing high atop a clocktower on Jaya Island, Van Augur adjusted his black cloak. His right eye was locked behind the scope of his heavily customized sniper rifle, Senriku.
For the past few days, the Blackbeard sniper had been idly practicing his extreme-range marksmanship and Observation Haki by firing at distant marine life and flying birds far beyond the visual horizon, terrorizing local ships passing through the sector.
Looking across the vast ocean, Augur raised an eyebrow. His scope locked onto a target far beyond normal human vision—a tiny dot on the water miles off the coast.
BANG! BANG!
Two heavy lead rounds tore through the air at supersonic speeds, crossing kilometers of open ocean in a split second.
Back aboard the Little Fish, the sudden impact of the dead seagulls immediately triggered Darian's instincts.
As a veteran who had fought through multiple worlds, Darian immediately recognized the signature work of Van Augur's extreme-range sniping.
'Shit... Blackbeard's crew is already on Mock Town,' Darian thought, his eyes narrowing into cold slits.
"Everyone, get down on the deck right now!" Darian roared.
The sudden shout caught the women off guard, making them pause in confusion.
BZZZZT!
Blue lightning arcs violently crackled across Darian's skin. Tapping into his newly awakened Observation Haki alongside the electromagnetic field generated by his Fruit and his refined chakra-sensing techniques, Darian expanded his sensory perception outward like a massive, expanding dome.
In an instant, a three-kilometer radius surrounding the Little Fish was completely mapped in his mind's eye.
Within this "God's-eye view," the world seemed to slow down. He could track the rise and fall of the ocean swells, the exact flow of the wind currents, and two additional lead bullets tearing through the sky at extreme speeds—heading directly toward Marianne's chest!
'You're aiming at a girl?!'
Darian's body moved instantly. Tapping into his silicone-enhanced speed, he blurred across the deck, placing his physical body directly between the incoming rounds and Marianne.
PLINK! PLINK!
The two heavy lead bullets struck Darian's hardened chest, flattening harmlessly against his dense, kinetic-absorbing skin before falling onto the wooden deck.
CLANG! CLANG!
"Kyaaa!" Nami screamed, finally realizing the danger as she dropped flat onto the deck, with the other women quickly following suit.
Mock Town Rooftop.
Miles away, Van Augur lowered his rifle, his Observation Haki confirming that his long-range targets had failed to register a hit.
"A failure?" Augur muttered unemotionally to himself. "Is this... fate?"
It was. And those were very nearly the last words he would ever utter.
Suddenly, an overwhelming, suffocating sense of imminent, cosmic mortality gripped Van Augur's mind. His Observation Haki screamed in absolute terror, forcing his head up toward the sky.
A massive, blinding pillar of blue-white thunder and pure kinetic force dropped straight out of the heavens like a divine hammer, completely swallowing the clocktower and everything within a hundred meters!
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