The tension in the air was thick enough to be cut with a blade—and several were already drawn. Zoro, standing amidst the chaos of the harbor, couldn't quite fathom what had just happened to Isuka.
Just moments ago, they were locked in a stalemate, a typical exchange of iron and willpower. But something had shifted. How could a seasoned Marine officer lose her composure halfway through a duel, only to return with a ferocity that bordered on the supernatural?
Zoro didn't care for the why; he only cared for the how. To him, a duel was a sacred conversation between swordsmen. If she was coming at him with this newfound, jagged edge, he had to meet it. He shifted his weight, the Wado Ichimonji clamped firmly between his teeth, while Sandai Kitetsu and Shusui hummed in his hands. He settled into the low, predatory stance of his Santoryu—Three-Sword Style.
"Get out of my way, Roronoa!" Isuka's voice wasn't just sharp; it was trembling with an unstable mixture of grief and fury.
She lunged. Zoro braced for a heavy impact, expecting the standard power of a Marine lieutenant, but he was met with something entirely different. In the world of swordsmanship, there is a common, often misguided prejudice: that female swordsmen cannot match the raw physical output of men.
In terms of sheer skeletal leverage and muscle mass, the gap often exists—but as Isuka's blade whistled through the air, she proved that compensation comes in the form of lethal precision.
Her blade didn't collide with his; it flowed around his defense. With a flick of her wrist that defied standard physics, her sword stabbed out from an impossible angle, catching the microscopic gap between his parrying blades.
Clang—Thud.
Zoro found himself eating dirt. He rolled back, eyes wide, staring up at the woman who had just bypassed his "impenetrable" defense.
"Guh... that angle..." Zoro spat out a bit of grit, his mind racing. "How is that even possible?"
It wasn't just skill. It was as if she were seeing his movements before he made them.
From the sidelines, Gion—the Marine Vice Admiral known as Momousagi—watched the exchange with a piercing gaze. Her hand rested on the hilt of her own meito, Kinkon, but she didn't interfere. A commander who steps in too early robs her subordinates of their growth.
"Did you see that?" Gion murmured, her voice barely audible over the crackle of distant fires. "The rudiments of Observation Haki—Kenbunshoku."
Hina, standing nearby and elegantly tapping the ash from a cigarette, nodded. "She isn't just sensing presence. She's using it to pinpoint structural flaws in her opponent's stance. It's aggressive, almost desperate."
"Isuka is in a 'special' state," Gion observed, her eyes narrowing as she watched the young woman's frantic movements. "It's a cocktail of love and hate. It's accelerating the release of her dormant potential. She's burning her own spirit to bridge the gap in power."
Hina took a long drag of her cigarette, the smoke curling around her pink hair. "Love and hate? I don't think Isuka even realizes she has feelings for him. She thinks she's chasing a criminal. She doesn't realize she's chasing a feeling."
"Love is a complicated mistress," Gion countered with a faint, dry smile. "Do you think any of us can 100% control our own psyches? I doubt Isuka even understands why her heart races when she sees Evan. She mistakes the adrenaline for duty."
Hina's eyes flickered toward Gion, a mischievous glint appearing. "And what about you, Gion? Do you have love for him? Even the slightest?"
Gion's composure didn't break, but she didn't look away either. "I am dedicated to Justice. Men are... distractions."
"Oh? Then why didn't you just say 'no'?" Hina's smirk widened. She had caught the hesitation.
Nearby, Kaya—no longer the sickly girl from Syrup Village but a woman bolstered by the "Red Dragon Heart"—lowered her head, her face flushing a deep crimson. The magical energy radiating from her was palpable; her potential had been cracked wide open by the diary's influence.
She was the living embodiment of "overflowing love," her power tied directly to her devotion to the man at the center of this storm.
Even Ain, usually the most stoic of the group, looked away, her brow furrowed. "He's just one man. A troublesome, chaotic man. Why is it so hard to look away?" Her voice carried a hint of bitterness. "Watching him be held by others... it's unpleasant. My chest feels tight."
The women fell into a heavy silence. The battle was winding down, the outcome becoming clear. The Navy's encirclement had failed. Most of the rank-and-file sailors were incapacitated, leaving only the elites to stand against the Straw Hat crew.
The man at the center of the controversy, Evan, finally managed to wiggle out of Nico Robin's protective (and somewhat possessive) embrace. He stood on the cobblestones, stretching his limbs.
"Blackening makes you three times stronger, they say," Evan muttered to himself, watching Isuka's aura flare. "But why is she 'blackening' over me? I didn't even do anything this time!"
With a subtle shift in his breathing, Evan activated his fruit ability, switching his physical form from his "child mode" back to his adult stature. The air around him shimmered as his muscles filled out and his height increased. To the watching Marines, the transformation was a reminder of just how unpredictable he was.
Isuka, seeing Evan return to his true form, abandoned her fight with Zoro. She turned her blade toward the girl standing in her way: Nami.
"Move," Isuka hissed.
Nami didn't move. She didn't even raise her Clima-Tact. She just stood there with a confident, almost lazy smile.
Isuka lunged, her sword singing a death note as it aimed for Nami's shoulder. The blade struck—and then it didn't. It slid off Nami's skin as if it had hit a patch of ice coated in oil. The friction simply ceased to exist.
"The Sube Sube no Mi," Evan whispered, impressed. "Nami's really Mastered it."
Isuka stumbled, her momentum carrying her past her target because there was no resistance to stop her. Before she could recover, Nami stepped forward. As her foot touched the ground, a ripple of "slickness" spread through the pavement.
Isuka tried to pivot, but the ground turned into a frictionless void. Her boots found no purchase. At that exact moment, Nami grabbed Isuka's shoulder—using her own grip to provide the only point of leverage—and delivered a sharp, calculated kick to Isuka's center of gravity.
Isuka went down hard, sliding across the harbor stones like a puck on an air-hockey table.
"The ground..." Isuka gasped, trying to push herself up, only for her hands to slip out from under her again. "You turned the earth itself into a slide?"
Nami patted her hands together, looking down at the frustrated Marine. "Instantly eliminating friction, combined with a little bit of wrestling knowledge... it's a good combo, right?"
"It's not over!" Isuka yelled, her face red with a mix of exertion and embarrassment. "Evan! I'm still arresting you!"
Evan stepped forward, his voice calm but firm, cutting through the shouting.
"I think it's time to call it, ladies," Evan said, looking around at the fallen Marines and the panting elites. "Look at the field. You're at a disadvantage. If we keep this up, people are going to get seriously hurt, and I don't think any of us actually want that."
He looked at Gion, then at Hina, and finally at Isuka, who was still struggling to stand on the magically slicked ground.
"You came here to capture us, but you've seen what we can do now. Let's not turn a skirmish into a massacre."
Unexpectedly, it was Luffy who broke the silence. He reached up, pressing his straw hat down over his eyes, his expression uncharacteristically somber.
"Evan," Luffy said, his voice low. "We need to go. Now."
Evan blinked, confused. "What? Luffy, we're winning. If anything, they should be the ones running."
"No," Luffy looked up, his Haki flaring for a brief second as he looked toward the horizon. "Something else is coming. Something big. This isn't just about the Navy anymore."
The shift in the atmosphere was instantaneous. The bickering between the women ceased. The rivalry between the swordsmen vanished. Even the "love and hate" that had fueled Isuka's surge of power seemed to chill under the weight of an approaching shadow.
Evan turned his gaze toward the sea. "Well," he sighed, cracking his neck. "I guess the party's just getting started."