Silence.
A deathly silence.
On the battlefield, whether pirates who had been roaring moments earlier or marines drowning in despair, everyone froze.
Every gaze locked onto the warship that had appeared out of thin air… and onto the man standing at its bow, casually sipping tea.
Time itself seemed to stop for three whole seconds.
Then-
A thunderous, euphoric cheer exploded from the G-5 docks, the sound of men celebrating the fact that they were still alive.
"It's the Endless Sheep! Admiral Renzo is back!!"
"Hhh- thank god!"
"Did you see that?! Did you!? That's OUR Admiral!"
At the center of all this exploding joy, Tibeard, the same colonel who, seconds ago, had resigned himself to heroic death, slowly, slowly straightened his back.
He rubbed his eyes, making absolutely sure he wasn't dreaming.
Then he saw it.
His Admiral's familiar side profile, that expression that looked like he couldn't be bothered by anything in the world.
In that instant, a surge of confidence unlike anything he'd ever felt shot from the soles of his feet straight to the top of his skull.
Fear?
Despair?
What the hell were those?
Were they edible?
Remembering his destroyed stash of precious collections and his murals of beautiful women…
All the terror and tragic dignity vanished from his face, replaced with a grin so arrogant, so twisted, so unhinged it practically radiated madness.
He spun around, planted both hands on his hips, and leaned right into Perospero's personal space, the same Perospero he had just been too afraid to even breathe near.
"Hey! You! Candy boy!"
Tibeard's voice, rough enough to scrape rust off a battleship, blasted out with the triumphant glee of a man who had just found his backing.
"What was that you were saying earlier? Turtle? Huh? Speak up, son, I can't hear you!"
Perospero's grin froze.=
His tongue halted mid-lick on his candy staff.
A flicker of shock and annoyance flashed in his eyes.
"And you!" Tibeard continued mercilessly, turning his finger toward the five-meter-tall, silent-as-a-mountain man nearby.
"Mochi Man! Charlotte Katakuri, yeah? The strongest Sweet Commander? The guy who can see the future?"
"Come on, come on- why did you predict this? Did you foresee this scene today?!"
Tibeard puffed out his hairy stomach proudly, arrogance leaking from every pore.
"Did you see yourselves beating us into the dirt, and then just… skip the part after that?!"
For the first time, Katakuri's usually calm, bottomless eyes wavered.
Because he had seen something.
A future, a very, very unpleasant one.
And the centerpiece of that disastrous future… was this loudmouthed marine.
But Tibeard wasn't done.
He pointed, actually pointed, at the mountain-like woman who was the Yonko herself.
Charlotte Linlin.
BIG MOM.
"And you! Fat lady!"
Every member of the Big Mom Pirates sucked in a terrified breath.
This man was done.
"Look at you! Acting like this is the first time you've ever seen a snack!"
Tibeard spat fury like a fire hose, ready to return every ounce of humiliation he suffered earlier, with interest.
"What, you came all this way with this whole circus parade just to beg for a few lousy pastries?!"
"Let me educate you! Here in the G-5 Branch, we follow RULES! Rules set by our Admiral Renzo!"
"Our admiral said it himself, desserts must be exchanged with a Dessert Voucher! Even a Yonko has to line up!"
The battlefield fell into a bizarre silence.
BIG MOM's rage soared to its peak.
Her giant body trembled with fury, heating the very air around her.
And just as the tension reached its breaking point-
The man at the bow finally made a new movement.
Renzo set down his teacup.
Monet instantly stepped forward to receive it.
He didn't seem to care about Tibeard's suicidal ranting.
He merely yawned lazily and glanced at the many cannonballs still suspended midair.
Then he lifted a single finger-
And flicked.
A tiny, casual flick.
Next second-
All hundreds of frozen cannonballs suddenly reversed direction and flew back at the Big Mom fleet ten times faster than before, streaking across the sky like black meteors of death!
"Not good!" Perospero's face twisted in horror.
But before annihilation could reach the fleet-
A figure moved.
Charlotte Katakuri.
He stepped forward, placing himself at the very front of the Queen Mama Chanter.
Facing down the incoming storm of cannonfire, his gaze did not waver.
"Mochi Wall"
With a low shout, his arms transformed into mochi, weaving and expanding at incredible speed.
In the blink of an eye, a colossal, dense, shockingly elastic white mochi wall rose from the deck, forming a massive shield before the fleet.
THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!
No earth-shattering explosions.
Just deep, heavy, drum-like impacts.
The cannonballs, each capable of leveling a town, sank into the mochi wall on contact, their destructive power absorbed.
In seconds, the entire barrage was gone.
The giant white mochi wall was now pockmarked with dark craters, resembling an enormous chocolate-speckled rice cake.
The sight was both absurd and surreal.
The G-5 Marines' cheers died instantly.
They stared, dumbfounded, unable to comprehend what they'd just witnessed.
The Big Mom Pirates' strongest Sweet Commander had… effortlessly blocked a Marine Admiral's counterattack?!
Katakuri slowly retracted his ability.
The massive wall collapsed inward, dragging all cannonballs into the sea without leaving a puff of smoke.
He lifted his head.
His crimson future-seeing eyes locked with Renzo's across hundreds of meters.
The air froze.
Aboard the Endless Sheep, Renzo finally raised an eyebrow, a rare sign of "interest" flickering across his perpetually sleepy face.
"Oh?"
On the dock, Tibeard shook off his momentary shock.
That shameless, overconfident swagger surged back into him like a second life bar refilling.
He pointed at Katakuri again, yelling even louder:
"Look! You see that? Mochi boy! That was just our Admiral warming up! Stretching his joints! Testing the waters!"
"Is ANYONE in your crew actually good at fighting?!"
"Look at you, you're exhausted already! Your mochi is stretching all over the place, isn't it?!"
With sheer bluster alone, Tibeard somehow twisted a perfectly executed Big Mom defense into a trivial "test shot," restoring the marines' morale in one breath.
Big Mom's pirates were trembling with fury, but couldn't argue, because Renzo really did look like he was just playing around.
.....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
[email protected]/DaoistJinzu