The Butcher Bird (One Piece SI, Canon Expansion) [COMPLETE] (2025)

This wraps up the Sabaody Arc.

My thanks to Obloquy, IslandHopper, TheStranger, and TotoroX92 for beta-ing.

Also right after this I'm gonna post a lil side-story/experimental thing so keep an eye out for that.

----

She'd gone in alone, of course.

That alone had been easy enough to achieve - the Nightmare counterattack hadn't caused too many casualties, but it had succeeded in driving the Pacifistas and the Marines supporting them back into the closely packed buildings of the harbor, splitting their forces up. That, and the amount of devastation caused by the lasers of the Pacifistas and the Nightmares themselves, had virtually cut off the Marines from the pirates and their ship.

It was a good thing they'd discreetly evacuated the civilians before opening fire. Property could be replaced. Lives could not.

It was also a good thing that the Nightmares hadn't departed or arrived at their ship by normal means. Otherwise, this ambush would have been impossible.

Now, though, there was only a single chokepoint between the Marines and the pirates, and she was in it.

It made things…simpler. It was going to be her choice, really, that said whether or not they moved forward. The outcome of a single battle.

She laid one hand on the hilt of her sword, relaxed but watchful as the other two pirates readied themselves.

She wasn't a fool. The Nightmares…they weren't like the Straw Hats. Their crimes were very real, and the dead that could be laid at their feet directly or indirectly numbered in the tens of thousands. Even the rot in her own side's government didn't change that fact.

She owed it to them, to see justice done. And protecting and defending refugees once did not erase the innocents they'd killed or the devastation they'd caused.

As for Roronoa Zoro…she turned her eyes on the man. He broke eye contact first, dismissal clear.

Arresting him, she could admit, would be a little motivated by pride. So she wouldn't. It wouldn't be just, not when she'd had perspective so violently demonstrated for her.

The tension slowly built. She exhaled, and cocked her head a little to the side.

"What happened to your armor, Hound?" she asked.

"His armor? What happened to your face?!" Roronoa snarled.

Ah. The scar. She'd almost forgotten it was there, the mark along the left side of her face, left behind when Shigure had broken.

Bosque Herman snorted. "That one's my work, swordsman. As for the armor…" He shrugged his massive shoulders. "Dead weight for me now. Got a question of my own, though - who carved open your chest like my captain with a fresh test subject?"

"...Mihawk," Roronoa answered around the sword in his mouth.

"Hrm. Well, you're not dead. That's more than most can say." The Nightmare cracked his neck, and lowered his sword into the upright guard, both hands on the hilt and one foot forward. To Tashigi's left, Roronoa tensed, knees bending slightly.

Tashigi emptied herself, putting away every emotion, every doubt and worry and fear. The world seemed to slow down around her, as Roronoa and Bosque leapt at each other.

She saw the path Bosque's blade took in its upwards cut, sidestepped the blade of distorted air that had been meant to keep her back, and moved forwards as the two men clashed. Despite his greater height and heavier build, it was Bosque that was being pushed back. With a roar of exertion, Roronoa hurled his opponent back.

In that moment, his guard was open, and his stance unsteady. He'd disregarded her. Fair, considering when he'd last met her. But she could see the path now.

Thought, for her, was action. She pushed forwards, already jumping. Roronoa's reflexive turn-and swing with his right-hand blade passed beneath her as she spun in midair, landing after it had already passed, blade coming down with her. Roronoa began to dodge - but not swiftly enough, as the tip of her sword carved a bloody line down his forehead and through his left eye. She dodged back, avoiding the reflexive cut he threw with his left-hand blade, then planted her feet to deflect the overhand strike Bosque Herman, already recovered, sent crashing down at her. The man's blade skated off her sword and slammed into the earth, and she turned with it to disperse the force, slamming the pommel into the taller man's jaw hard enough to knock him back a step. In that moment, she cut upwards, carving a shallow slice across his torso before leaping back just quickly enough to avoid the counterstroke.

The wound bled for only a moment - then it turned to mist, and faded away as though it had never been. Even Bosque's clothes were untouched.

They stood opposed to each other again, three points on the triangle: the only thing that'd changed was their relative positions.

Slowly, Roronoa reached for the bandana tied around his arm.

Slowly, Bosque grew in size - surrounded by yet more mist, which seemed to shroud the familiar black fur of his normal half-Zoan form.

"Your sword," the blacksmith stated, voice echoing strangely. "What is its name, now?"

She flicked Roronoa's blood from the blade, and sheathed it with care. "Fuyuarashi," she answered. "The Winter Storm."

Bosque nodded. Roronoa merely grunted, bandana now tied around his head at an angle that covered his wounded eye.

The pressure built.

Inhale. Exhale.

The world slowed down again, and all three of them charged as one.

Tashigi lost herself in the world of clashing steel. They were stronger than her, faster than her, and now they were taking her seriously. It was only thanks to the battle-trance that Vice Admiral Gripper had trained her in and the fact they were fighting each other as much as her that was letting her survive.

Bosque fought without care, trusting his abilities to keep him from harm. His strikes shook her even as she deflected most of their force, and cut beyond the metal of his blade - any moment he had space was a moment in which a blade of distorted air was threatening their lives.

Roronoa was stalwart, striking and blocking simultaneously with ease, the three blades he held in constant motion. She didn't dare take his strikes even with the force dispersed - anything that could knock Bosque back with ease, she did not yet have the strength to avoid fully.

It was exhilarating. Two swordsmen, each strong in their own way, only a hairsbreadth from death as she dueled them both, matching them…

This was why she'd bled and suffered for the past month. To know, as only doing it in person could tell her, that she had what it took to bring anyone to justice.

She wove through attacks, untouched, never truly there for them to strike. This was the core of her style - Mist Cutting, never being tangible, but always present.

But she could not make headway. Even with the two striking at each other as often as her, she could not bring either down - Roronoa's guard was too close, now, and Bosque's abilities kept any damage she did from staying.

She still had much to learn, it seemed. So she continued to fight, using every inch of skill and strength she had, the battle-trance barely keeping her alive, until they broke apart again. Bosque was panting, and Roronoa had a few minor wounds. Her own body ached from the strength of the blows she'd parried, but her grip on Fuyuarashi was still steady and her stance still strong.

She could feel the air change, a chill creeping through the air and new pressure against her eardrums. She sheathed her sword again. The air around Roronoa wavered, flashes of extra arms and limbs barely present. Bosque merely stood there, somehow more solid, more real, Amakatta cocked back over one shoulder in a high guard.

One more attack, then.

Her feet dug into the earth as she tensed.

As one, all of them leapt forwards.

"Asura: Nine Demon Flash!"

"[CLEAVE]!"

"Wind Parts the Mists!"

She never even saw her quickdraw iaido slash land - as they converged, she was thrown back just as swiftly as she'd come, barely keeping her grip on Fuyuarashi as her heels dug furrows in the earth. She straightened with a snarl - what.

Bartholomew Kuma stood in the center of where they'd clashed, clad in a heavy hooded cloak, face as serene and impassive as ever. Roronoa and Bosque had also been thrown back, and were getting to their feet.

By the time Tashigi processed the sudden appearance of a former Warlord, the man had reappeared at Roronoa Zoro's side, and touched him - that was all it took for the man to vanish from existence.

"Oi!" Bosque shouted. "We weren't done!"

Kuma's gaze fixed upon the Nightmare blacksmith. Tashigi blinked, and he was gone as well.

She leveled her sword. She wasn't going out without a -

She blinked again, and Kuma was gone.

…

This was why nobody trusted pirates. Or Revolutionaries.

—-

Vinci was smart enough to admit he had many flaws - but he was not so stupid as to make the same mistake twice.

So, despite his words, he did not leave Prometheus to fight the entire batch of Pacifistas alone. He'd seen where they'd been moving, after all. All they had to do was cut that squad off and keep them from getting into position to cripple his ship before it left harbor.

Another Marine went down screaming beneath his spear, and he turned just in time to avoid another's blade. A moment's attention, and the Marine turned to ashes as lightning removed him from existence, forking through his body to strike down more of his comrades. Power he couldn't afford to burn recklessly, but hard and fast was the rule now.

The ambush had gone well. His Companions, even empowered with the same trick he'd used against Michael, were not something he'd waste in a straight fight. They'd hit the Pacifistas and their Marine escorts from all sides, kept the massive war machines from using their deadliest weapons, and turned the street into a chaotic melee.

He spat a twisting word, and golden fire engulfed another squad of Marines, clawing against the armored legs of the Pacifista behind them. The war machine turned to face him, only for a trio of Companions to leap forward and engage it in melee. Their own armor shone gold, arcs of power coruscating - Vinci was expending no small effort in maintaining the same trick he'd used against Michael, taking the abilities of his bodyguards to even greater heights.

He was vaguely aware of the space behind him, where Gin had stuck himself like a burr, meteor hammer plying its deadly trade as his bosun worked to keep any survivors from getting too close. But most of his attention was on the space before him, the dying Marines and the embattled living war machines.

It was fortunate, he reflected idly as he cut another Marine in half, that these Pacifistas seemed to be cruder and weaker than the ones Kaneki had spoken of. Perhaps Kuma's early defection had left gaps in the project? In any case, it was letting his people hold their own, now that the cyborgs could not use their greatest weapons without hitting their allies. But there was something…

He shook his head. He couldn't place it, yet, but his eye of marvels saw much. There was nothing left within the Pacifistas, no inner fire, and yet…he would swear they felt…familiar.

The last of the Marines fell, and the ranks of the Pacifistas seemed to part before him, the melee moving around him without touching him.

He saw one, standing alone. Waiting.

It was taller than its fellows, broader too. It carried a massive hammer in one hand. A black beard spilled from beneath its helmet.

Oh.

That was why.

How dare they.

How dare they?!

Vinci smelled ozone, tasted blood in the back of his mouth.

One step forward. Another. The heartbeat in his ears, drowning out everything else. The glint in the lensed helmet, as it prepared to fire.

He did not move. He saw, as nerves misfired, as the neck twitched.

The beam of coruscating light that erupted from the head of the Pacifista, of Jack's puppeted corpse, passed through the air bare feet from his head, but it did not touch him.

"The mind is gone," he heard himself say. "But the body remembers, doesn't it? They couldn't kill all of you. And you were always true to your oaths, old friend."

The corpse gave no reply.

Another step forward.

There was an arm across his chest. There was Gin, stepping in front of him.

Vinci did not snarl. Did not rage.

He just nodded, and stepped back, at the wordless request his bosun had made.

Some things, men had to take responsibility for.

It was only right, that the new bosun should bury the old.

In fact…let this contest stand alone.

Lightning burst from his pores, carved through the air, to each of the Pacifistas still standing. Each fell to the ground, twitching, as their bodies found all signals from their nerves blocked.

He could not increase the amperage enough to kill - his work, and the cybernetics grafted on to it, was too durable for that. But he could hold them, all dozen of them. For long enough, at least. It was taking all he could merely to do that, the energy coursing through his veins burning deep, but he would hold them.

He had not made himself to fight battles as a champion. His skills lay in breaking armies, in devastation wreaked from afar. This was all he could do, now.

His weapon became a staff. Vinci leaned on it, and watched.

Gin's meteor hammer whirred as it lashed to and fro, dancing in patterns that deflected the strikes of the Pacifista's hammer with ease. With more ease, Vinci noted, than he should have had.

Ah. Jack. Too stubborn for even death to finish him. There were some things that the body rebelled against, beneath even the conscious mind, and that was why Gin was able to block those blows.

The corpse wound up for an immense blow, and blasted a crater into the earth with the force of it, but Gin was already gone, and the meteor cracked against the corpse's lensed helmet, shattering it. The corpse roared, and lashed out blindly, but the Nightmare bosun ducked under the blow, and slammed a power-wreathed fist into the armored monstrosity's knee. Armor plate and the flesh and bone beneath it cracked, and the monster went to one knee. A picture-perfect roundhouse slammed into the Pacifista's chin, and Vinci's eye of marvels tracked the vibrations as they first entered the bones of the skull and then exploded outward, shattering the helmet entirely.

Jack's features were nearly gone. Only the cheekbones and lower jaw remained - the rest replaced by cybernetics.

Even now, the corpse did not die. It threw itself forward on its one good leg, grappling for the meteor hammer's chain. It caught it in one immense fist and threw it aside. Gin let it go with little more than a narrowing of his eyes, drawing a pair of maces with the same flanged head as the meteor hammer.

Not maces, Vinci realized, as they sprouted handles offset ninety degrees and extended to their full length.

Tonfas.

The dull hum as Gin began to spin them slowly built into a keening wail.

The Pacifista lunged forward again.

"Last Toll."

Close to two tons of armored abomination fell to earth with a dull thud, a smoking stump where its head had been.

Almost instantly, another two tons of cloaked abomination landed lightly on the ground.

Bartholomew Kuma stared at Vinci for long moments, completely ignoring the struggling form of Jewelry Bonney he had hoisted over one shoulder like an unruly potato sack.

There was a blur of movement, and every Pacifista Vinci had been pinning vanished from his awareness.

"So it's like that, huh?" he asked. "You finish with the Straw Hats already?"

"Every piece has its place," Kuma replied.

"You're a cryptic pain in the ass, you know -"

He didn't even see Kuma move. Just felt himself go flying, and the collision with Prometheus's deck. He rose, dusted himself off, and was nearly knocked flat as the Companions, Gin, and Jack's headless corpse missed him by inches.

Well. Man wasn't wasting any time, now was he?

"Theo?" he asked.

"Ja?" the ship's ghost said, appearing in the corner of his eye.

"Get us the fuck out of here."

—-

Gripper's unconscious form goes hurtling into a wall, my fist leaving an imprint on his torso.

Too fucking close, if I hadn't caught his wrist he'd have taken my head off…

No time to reflect on that. I half-turn, catch Smoker's descending jutte, and take Horus's staff on my tendrils, the impact forcing me back through the blood-soaked earth.

"Really?" I ask. "For her, of all people?"

Maybe it was just reflex. Maybe I've finally pushed far enough, what with the literal pile of corpses. But they're not following up.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. Doesn't matter.

Let's push them a little farther.

"Fine, then," I snarl, letting the heat spike, tendrils arching to point at them. "You want to defend the slavers this bad? I'll go through you."

"This island isn't just slavers, Butcher Bird," Smoker says softly, eyes hard. "Nor the rest of the Archipelago."

I shrug ostentatiously. "Near enough as makes no difference. Should I expect heroes, here? Some oppressed underclass, smugglers in the shadows trying to free the ones the slavers take? Vigilantes acting against the kidnapping gangs? Are they behind every corner, every back alley, just waiting for someone to give them a reason to rise up?" I let the laughter rip its way out of my throat as the fire coalesces around me, scorching the grass. "Don't play the fool. Once I might have given them a chance - Celestial Dragons are not lightly opposed. But this place…there are no heroes here. There is nobody with the guts to fight. The Dark King contents himself with stealing from the auction houses, perhaps a few others nibble at the edges. The rest? Content, human cattle merely hoping they can live another day! Fuck them! They don't fight, they don't kill - why should I treat them as people with ideals, if they won't die for them?"

I spread my arms. "This archipelago will burn. You ready to burn with it?"

"It only burns if we can't stop you," Smoker growls, as Horus pulls something from his pocket. A glass jar, filled with something crimson and writhing. Ah. So they did keep that.

"So that's a yes, then."

My tendrils lash out, knocking Smoker off-balance as they collide with his jutte. The Adam Wood flexes but doesn't break, and the half-second of time that buys is enough for Horus - clad in crimson armor just like he was at Arlen - to rush forwards. I catch the downward strike of the Blackstaff on crossed arms, barely keep standing from the force of it, and push him back just far enough to strike. My tendrils carve grooves in the semi-organic armor, but little else. Not a problem.

Foot forward. Fist back. Breathe.

"Four Point Stri-."

"Howling Smoke!"

My tendrils disintegrate under the force of the massive wolf's head that tears into me and launches me back, before dissipating into haze. No time to wonder where the fuck Smoker learned to do that, as Horus is already coming for me, staff smashing a crater as I roll to the side. I'm on my feet in an instant, slamming a fist into his jaw and staggering him for just a moment, looking for - there.

Path of Air.

My wings hurl me towards Smoker, only for him to dissolve - wait, what? - into smoke as my talons tear through him. A decoy? How did he -

No nervous system to track, so I don't catch the smokey remnants moving until it's almost too late - and even then, as they wrap around me, so strong I can't break free, it's only enough to keep them from totally pinning my arms.

You've got to be fucking -

And then Horus hits me in the back of the head, and things go sideways for a second. I almost don't feel the follow-up blows as they almost drive me to my knees.

Then everything snaps back into painful clarity, just in time for the Blackstaff to slam into my gut. I bend double, resisting the urge to vomit.

Damn it, I hadn't wanted to use this -

Another blow snaps my head back, and I taste blood.

Fine then. He'll live.

Path of Fire.

I weather the storm of blows as my wings wither away. It hurts, and halfway through I feel something crack in my chest, but that's fine. My focus is on the crimson gas seeping from me. I let it pool, moving with the blows Horus rains down on me to both disperse the force and keep it from accumulating too swiftly. Some, I let gather behind the smoke.

Inhale. Exhale.

I see the swing of the staff before it happens, and turn to meet it. Arms're still pinned in every way that matters, but my neck isn't, and my jaw still works. I take the blow to the face, and bite down hard.

Horus tries to pull the staff free. Too late.

One spark.

Then everything goes up in flames. The piled corpses burn, reduced to ash and less than ash, and I am free.

One breath. Two. Okay.

Horus is down, armor smoking, but he's still breathing. The explosion's tossed Smoker into a wall. He's struggling to stand.

Yeah, no.

Path of Fire. Path of Air.

Draconic Armor: Wyvern.

Wings aren't enough. I grow engines instead, and rocketing forward becomes literal.

Fist cocked back. Inhale. Exhale.

He's a tough bastard. He'll live.

Four Point Strike: Jericho Star.

My feet find the earth, my hips turn into the blow, and my fist snaps forwards with a bullet's crack - but Horus is somehow there in an instant, staff raised to guard..

I feel the Blackstaff snap like a dry twig, and hear the crunch of breaking ribs as my fist smashes him back into Smoker and both of them through a building. And several others, judging from the continued crashing sounds.

Three down.

Right.

Plan C. Couldn't avert Straw Hat's mess, couldn't keep ourselves uninvolved. Only way forward is to attract so much attention Kizaru has to deal with me.

Now then.

Let's see how much we can burn.

—-

Horus woke up to pain, screaming, and more pain.

Megingjörð hurt, the armor cracked and screaming in the back of his skull. Real screams, though, filtered in from outside the hole in the wall. He lifted the Blackstaff…then stared at what had become of his family's weapon. Split right down the middle, from the punch that had -

Oh, shit. Smoker.

Adrenaline got him moving even with his ribs joining the chorus of hurts at the sudden movement, but the Captain wasn't beneath him. A few frantic moments later, Horus found him - leaned against a wall, jutte still clenched in his hand. Breathing, at least…

What the hell had gotten into Kaneki? Even the selfish bastard who lived in the back of his head hadn't been this bad - this willing to slaughter.

"They're in here!"

He turned as Marines clambered through the hole in the…store? Yeah, this looked like a general store he'd been punched into. They swarmed around Smoker. Only one gave him so much as a glance. "You good to walk, sir?" the grizzled man asked.

Slowly, Horus nodded. It still hurt, but less so with every moment, Megingjörð healing slowly, doing its best to heal him too.

"What's happening?" he managed to ask as he limped out of the store. The air was thick with smoke, and there was a sullen red glow on the horizon.

"Rear Admiral Ozawa and Captain Hina led us off the ships, we're evacuating this district!" the Marine shouted over the roar of distant flames and the screaming of the fleeing civilians. "The fires are spreading, sir, we need to get out of here! Hina, Ozawa, and the Vice Admiral are holding off -"

THOOM.

Horus whirled as an unconscious Ozawa smashed a crater into the burning street, just in time to catch Gripper. It made his ribs scream anew and nearly knocked him over again, but he managed to slow the man's flight without breaking anything in him, or hitting any one of the dozens of people who were busy running for their lives.

Gripper had gotten a haircut, part of him yammered in the back of his skull. Or rather, something had burned through the man's long grey hair, and left only a couple charred inches behind. The man was covered in light burns, but he managed to leap from Horus's arms well enough, only giving a nod.

"You're still alive, then," the Vice Admiral said, not taking his gaze from the direction he'd come flying from, as several of the Marines grabbed the unconscious Ozawa and ran in the opposite direction. "Smoker?"

Horus jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. "Medics should be dragging him out."

"Hm." Gripper swung his sword, scattering blood on the street, where it hissed and spat. "Can you fight?"

Horus considered.

The Blackstaff was broken. His family's ancestral weapon, snapped like a twig by one single, furious blow. Said blow had broken the armor that he'd been relying on, and launched him halfway across the island. Two or three would probably kill him.

He still had his fists, though.

He cracked his knuckles. "Well enough."

"Then watch," Gripper said. "It'll be your job to bring him down."

Horus would have started questioning the sanity of that statement, if not for the enormous fucking laser that suddenly cut through the building in front of them, reducing most of the people in its way to ash, only to be cut in half by Gripper. The heat was scorching even through his armor, he didn't have the slightest idea how Gripper wasn't on fire.

Dozens. Dozens of people. Civilians, Marines, both. The screaming pressed closer on all sides, even the ones who hadn't been instantly killed burned by the heat, the wounded writhing in the burning grass, the dead and charred -

It -

He couldn't make his legs move. Megingjörð had locked him in place, every wordless instinct the suit had screaming in pain and fear. All he could do was stand there, frozen, as the heat intensified once more.

"You should've stayed down, Vice Admiral," a voice like broken glass said, as Yoshimura Kaneki stalked through the burning remnants of the building he'd obliterated.

There was no trace of the man Horus knew. Only a monster - ten feet tall, gangly-limbed and vicious, a dragon's head and a toothy smile, claws and talons. Fire poured from its back, formed a halo of light around its head, and a tail lashed behind it as it stepped forward.

"And Horus too?" Kaneki growled. "Honestly."

Gripper did not say anything. He merely attacked.

Horus did as he'd been ordered. He watched.

Gripper was quick. Fast enough that Horus could barely follow his movements. His sword was a blur, and even without the multitudes he normally used, he was still swift enough with the one to strike with a dizzying array of cuts.

It wasn't enough.

Kaneki shouldn't have been able to see Gripper coming, yet somehow his defense was perfect, claws and talons batting the blade away nine times out of ten, the few strikes that connected never making lasting damage. His return blows, punches thrown with blistering force and speed, were dodged by inches - but it couldn't last. All that had to happen, Horus knew, was for Gripper to be just a fraction too slow.

No sooner had he thought it than it happened, as an uppercut slammed into the Vice Admiral's chin, followed swiftly by a straight right that knocked him into the charred ruins of another building - which promptly collapsed with a dull rumble.

Kaneki's burning gaze turned to Horus. The monster stared at him for long moments. Megingjörð's screams continued.

Then Kaneki walked towards him, and then past him.

He couldn't move. He couldn't -

There were still people behind him. Still Marines evacuating the wounded. Still civilians running for their lives.

Still people, that Kaneki was going to kill. Was going to butcher, for no other reason than he had decided they weren't worth caring about, that they were in the way of whatever goals he'd set, that they weren't with him so they were against him.

Megingjörð's grip lightened. Horus turned, and swung.

Kaneki caught the blow in one clawed hand without even turning his head.

"One Point Strike."

The man's fist slammed into his abdomen, driving him to his knees.

Kaneki turned, and walked away again.

Horus rose, and swung again.

Kaneki took a step back, and lifted one hand to his jaw. "Stubborn," he growled. "Two Point Strike."

Horus managed to guard. The punch still knocked him into another building. Some contractor was going to have a field day, part of his brain woozily commented.

He got to his feet. Kaneki was trying to walk away, towards where the civilians and Marines had run.

Horus tackled him mid-stride, making him stumble. "Are you seriously-" the Oni managed to get out, before Horus planted his feet and threw with all the strength he had, hurling him down the street.

"You're going to have to kill me to get through me," he growled. "Why are you even doing this?"

"Why does it matter?" Kaneki asked, rising from the dirt. "Three Point Strike."

He didn't even see the blow itself. Just felt the impact, as it knocked him down again. He was up an instant later. It hurt, but it didn't matter.

"Why?" he demanded, standing between the Butcher Bird and his goal. "These are people, dammit! Civilians! Why don't you care? Once you would've been up in arms! Now…what happened, Kaneki?"

He'd expected...he wasn't sure. Maybe another, familiar rant, something to put this all into context, some atrocity or tale of torment that had driven Kaneki over the edge.

He didn't expect Kaneki to laugh.

"You think this is new?" the Oni began. "I killed men for sustenance in the South Blue. I slaughtered rebels in the Spice Archipelago, I let my Captain walk away when his plans doomed thousands of innocents at Arlen. I watched the destruction of Deliverance at his hand and welcomed it. I KILLED AND ATE MY OWN BROTHER! Do you think I will flinch from butchering everything in my path now?!"

Oh.

So that was how it was.

Horus felt a deep calm settle over him. He got it, now.

Whatever had happened to Kaneki, whatever had driven him to such extremes…it didn't matter.

There was only the monster in front of him. And his family knew how to handle those.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

He wasn't used to formal stances - he'd been taught adaptability and fluidity when he was a kid, never actually holding to any one style. But he took one anyway - the same Kaneki had, countless times.

That made an impression - even if Kaneki's monstrous form didn't have the range of motion for facial expressions beyond a baring of teeth, the shock was there to see.

"You're bluffing. That art requires years to master unless you can cheat, and last I checked, you can't grow back limbs."

Horus shrugged. "It's a bit like using Haki, isn't it?" he said, a smile he didn't feel spreading across his face. "But instead of letting it out, you pull it all inward. Get hit by it often enough, you figure out the trick."

For a moment, Kaneki stood there, silent. Then he took a deep breath. The fires at his back flickered and died, and the heat vanished, even as the haloed crown around his head burned brighter than ever.

Slowly, he mirrored Horus's stance.

There were no more words. They lunged at each other as one.

Their fists met with an impact that shattered every window in the street. As one, they pulled back, and punched with their right hands. Horus felt Kaneki's jaw break under his fist as Megingjörð's faceplate cracked. They broke apart for a moment, each of them staggering back a step, two, three, before rushing back in.

One point. Two. Three. Four. Compress them down, hold them steady, and strike with perfection.

Horus went high. Kaneki went low. The world went white for a moment.

When his vision cleared, he was flat on his back. Everything hurt, he couldn't even begin to move. Megingjörð was, he blearily realized, calling him an idiot as it tried to patch them both up.

But it didn't matter, even though Kaneki was still standing.

Because even from where he lay, he could see who stood at the other end of the street.

He'd held out long enough. Admiral Kizaru had come.

—-

Kizaru would have rather spent his time going after the battleship, putting the Nightmares down for good, if not for a few things.

Problem the first, he'd gotten off at the wrong grove. Entirely understandable, things were just a pain like that. He'd gotten around quickly enough after all, even beaten down a few upstarts along the way, but he hadn't had the time to deal with them permanently. Honestly he didn't even have orders about the Supernovas in general - they were just hotshot rookies, it didn't matter one way or another if the Marines managed to capture them while they were unconscious.

That said, he'd also managed to give Drake a bit more cover on the way. Good enough, on balance, to satisfy the people who might doubt a 'former Marine's' defection to piracy.

Anyway. Problem the second. Namely, his student fighting for his life. Gripper was still alive, thankfully, just buried under rubble. It was no great surprise he'd been beaten - he could sense the power within Yoshimura Kaneki's frame. But still, priorities had to be established - namely, he needed to clear the scene so that someone could get his student out from under the crushing weight of an entire apartment building.

Problem the third was, unfortunately, the biggest one. Namely, apparently Yoshimura Kaneki had snapped a Celestial Dragon's neck like a Tuscanian grandmother snapped uncooked noodles, which meant he was currently the highest-priority target on the entire Archipelago, island sized demon battleship capable of fighting most of the fleet currently at Marineford by itself be damned. Orders were orders, and even more interestingly, those orders said Yoshimura Kaneki was to be conveyed, alive, to Impel Down. The Elder Stars themselves said so, and Kizaru was always loyal to authority.

Just another cog in the machine.

Kizaru regarded the monster for a moment. The monster flipped him off.

Kizaru moved.

His kick lanced out - not at the monster, but at the cloaked man dropping out of the sky. His foot slammed into Bartholomew Kuma's neck, and knocked the man into the dirt. The former Warlord was on his feet a moment later, impassively regarding both of them as Kizaru dropped back down to earth.

"Sorry," Kizaru told the hulking cyborg. "He's mine to deal with. Not yours."

Kuma stared at him for a moment, then nodded with glacial slowness. Then he was gone.

Not too fast for Kizaru to track, obviously - but quite quick, using his Devil Fruit powers to hurl himself into the air at absurd speed. Fast enough to make a chase unlikely. And besides, even if he hadn't had standing orders to prioritize the murderous cannibal above all else, he could easily say that said murderous cannibal was the more potent threat of the two.

Speaking of -

Kizaru stepped to the side, avoiding a blow from Yoshimura's fist by inches. He stepped back to dodge the backhand the cannibal threw, and again to avoid the axe kick that followed it. "Aren't you energetic?" he said pleasantly. "Most people would hesitate before fighting an Admiral."

"Shut up and fight," the monster growled.

"If you insist," Kizaru said, and kicked him.

The side of the mangrove tree, several hundred meters away, exploded.

It wasn't as though Kizaru needed to hold back, after all. Intelligence suggested Yoshimura could heal from most anything.

"Yata Mirror."

Line of sight was all he needed to transition from the street to the branches of the mangrove, just above the impact crater. An impact crater which, he noted, lacked an unconscious Yoshimura. Ah. Well. He was durable, wasn't he?

Yoshimura leaped down from a higher branch, burning a path through the greenery.

Kizaru kicked him back into the tree.

Yoshimura got back up, and swung his clawed hands, blades of air ripping up bark and leaf. Kizaru let them cut through him, reformed, and kicked him back into the tree again.

"You do understand that you don't have a chance, right?" he asked, as the cannibal struggled back to his feet.

"Mama didn't raise no bitch," the monster growled.

Kizaru quirked an eyebrow. "Weren't you made in a test tube?"

"And yet that test tube didn't raise a bitch."

Kizaru had no response to that. So he defaulted to the normal way one dealt with pirates - kicking them into hard objects.

Yoshimura made a significantly bigger crater against the ground than he had against the giant tree. Fascinating.

The crater then exploded into a mass of angry red fire, which was even more interesting.

The fire then turned into a dragon the size of several apartment buildings.

Kizaru would have asked where the mass came from, but honestly, after a certain point, he'd stopped expecting physics to make sense. He moved at lightspeed, for goodness' sake - the fact he didn't explode entire islands when he stopped moving proved that nothing was consistent.

The dragon punched the mangrove he was standing on, and the tree began to fall.

Well. There was going to be a lot of property damage today.

It wasn't as if he could make things worse if he went all-out, then.

Yoshimura would probably survive.

—-

Commodore Muimina had his orders, which were refreshingly simple:

Order the first, escort Admiral Kizaru to the Sabaody Archipelago, letting him off to hunt down the idiot who'd killed a Celestial Dragon.

Order the second, avoid getting his command of five battleships obliterated by whatever fresh hell the Wild Hunt had sitting in a different grove.

Order the third, make full speed to Impel Down once the Admiral retrieved the poor bastard. Alive, apparently.

Less than a minute ago, one of the mangroves had toppled. Then there'd been an enormous flash of light.

Muimina saw the glint on the horizon, and straightened to attention as Admiral Kizaru landed on deck. He was holding a faintly smoking skeleton in one hand. The skeleton was still twitching.

"Put this in a steel coffin," the Admiral ordered absent-mindedly, dropping the grisly thing to the deck. "Then wrap that coffin from head to toe in seastone chains. Have it guarded during our sail to Impel Down."

Muimina saluted, and began to bellow orders.

All in all, a simple mission, well accomplished.

—-

Sentomaru considered the results as the last of the V2 Pacifistas were loaded back onto the submersible.

All in all, this operation was a victory for the Marines. The civilian casualties had been sizeable, but entirely confined to the lawless areas of the Archipelago, and thus not the World Government's jurisdiction or responsibility except by technicality. And evacuation efforts had minimized the damage in that regard - only a hundred or so dead and perhaps three times that many wounded.

Considering the usual effects of the Nightmares setting into port - the last time a town, city, or entire island hadn't had a bloody slaughter on its soil that resulted in thousands dead was when they were still in the South Blue - that few casualties was remarkable.

Even more remarkable was the performance of the new prototypes. While individually each was certainly weaker than the first Pacifistas…well. They'd been able to deploy dozens of them, and while several had been severely damaged, only one was a complete loss. And even then, judging from the recorded footage, it had taken the two Nightmare officers who punched highest above their weight class to inflict crippling damage, usually from ambush. The Marines themselves who'd accompanied the Pacifistas had taken serious losses, of course, but no more serious than usual considering their opposition.

The Nightmares had suffered nearly a hundred casualties, judging from the footage - though many of their wounded had been recovered. They'd been driven from the island entirely, and fled from the full might of the Marines, sacrificing their first mate, perhaps the single most powerful member of their crew, to merely survive Uncle Kizaru's wrath. The Straw Hat Pirates, who had been feared as daredevils, had been comprehensively defeated - even their ship had vanished. Kuma's doing, no doubt - the former Warlord had linked up with his Revolutionary contacts after his defection, the likely reason he was even at the Archipelago had probably been to remove particularly troublesome pieces from the board.

Nobody had seen hide nor hair of the Heart Pirates, either, which was another relief. Either the Wild Hunt had rebuffed their alliance or they'd simply fled when the situation had escalated.

The other Supernovas had also largely fled - at least one in the company of the Wild Hunt's ships, the rest scattering as pirates always did. Some had run across either Uncle Kizaru or other Marines, and been beaten down accordingly, but they'd managed to escape - largely because everyone was needed back at Marineford, and no time could be spared to coat battleships to hunt down some rookie pirate crews.

The old man would be pleased about the performance of his prototypes, Sengoku would be happy that the Nightmare hellship could be fought on something approaching even terms, the Nightmares themselves were down one of their strongest and absolutely did not have the capacity to get him back, and the Wild Hunt as a whole had fled for safer waters, and likely wouldn't be a threat even if the Nightmares themselves went to Marineford.

As he'd said - a victory.

Next would be the real war - at Marineford, where an Emperor and the Revolutionaries would be coming.