The air in the center of Hachinosu had reached a state of supernatural density. It was no longer just wind and shadow; it was a pressurized chamber of concentrated willpower so heavy that the surrounding stone began to turn into fine white powder. Dragon stood at the center of this vacuum, his eyes glowing with the golden-red hue of a lineage that had finally decided to stop hiding behind the clouds.
Blackbeard recoiled, his darkness flickering like a candle in a gale. He clutched his chest, feeling a phantom weight pressing against his ribs. "That Haki... it's not just the 'D'! It smells of the women from the belt of the calm! Where did a man like you learn the secrets of the Kuja?! That is the Haki of the Throne!"
Dragon didn't answer with words. He answered with the rhythm of his breathing—a deep, resonant inhalation that seemed to draw the very oxygen out of the surrounding miles, leaving Teach gasping in a literal void.
The Education of a Dragon: The Fist of the Father
Dragon's combat prowess wasn't merely a gift of his Devil Fruit; it was forged in the same brutal, uncompromising furnace that would later produce Monkey D. Luffy.
Decades ago, on a desolate Marine training ground hidden in the jagged cliffs of the East Blue, a younger, black-haired Garp had stood before a teenage Dragon. Garp didn't wear the mantle of a hero then; he wore the grim, weathered face of a father who knew the world was a meat grinder designed to chew up the weak.
"Again!" Garp had roared, slamming his bare fist into the ground. The resulting tremor didn't just crack the earth; it sent a localized shockwave through the air that sent the young Dragon flying backward into the rock face. "You're relying on your eyes, Dragon! In a real fight, the eyes are the first things to lie to you! They see the shadow, not the strike! Feel the intent! Hear the 'breath' of the stone before it breaks!"
Dragon had pulled himself up, bleeding from the lip, his gaze defiant and burning with a spark Garp secretly admired. "I'm trying, Dad! But your Haki... it feels like being hit by a falling moon! How am I supposed to breathe through that?!"
"Because it is!" Garp laughed, a booming, seismic sound that shook the very trees. "The Monkey D. style isn't about finesse or fancy titles, boy. It's about Internal Destruction. It's about bypassing the armor, the skin, and the ego to hit the soul of the matter. Whether it's a pirate's chest or a corrupt king's throne, you don't hit the surface—you hit the center!"
Garp had trained Dragon in the Advanced Color of Arms (Ryou) and the Advanced Color of Observation (Future Sight) long before the world knew such things were possible for any but the legends. He taught Dragon that the "D" wasn't just a middle initial—it was a frequency of the soul that could harmonize with the world around it.
"One day," Garp had said, his voice unusually quiet as they sat by a dying campfire on the cliff's edge, "you'll encounter a power that seems like a god. A power that tells you that you are nothing. On that day, you don't bow. You use your Conqueror's Haki not to knock out the weak, but to suppress the strong. You wrap your spirit around their throat and you remind them that even gods bleed when the wind turns against them."
The Empress's Grace: A Revolution Born of Love
But while Garp gave Dragon the "Fist"—the raw, destructive power of the Monkey lineage—it was Tritoma who gave him the "Flow."
During those hidden, stolen years on the nameless island in the Calm Belt, their love hadn't just been a refuge from a pursuing world; it had been a school of two. Tritoma, the Empress of the Sun, possessed the most refined and lethal Haki in the history of Amazon Lily. She taught Dragon that the wind he controlled was not just a tool for destruction, but an extension of his own nervous system.
"You are too rigid, my Storm," Tritoma would say, her fingers tracing the jagged scars Garp had left on Dragon's back. "The wind does not fight the mountain; it does not try to push it over with a shoulder. It flows around it, finds the microscopic cracks, and waits until the mountain becomes sand. Watch."
She would draw her snakeskin bow, and without even glancing at her target, fire an arrow. The projectile wouldn't just fly straight; it would bend mid-air, weaving through the dense jungle canopy as if it were alive, guided by a localized field of her spirit.
"This is the Aro-Haki," she explained, her voice a calm melody amidst the tropical heat. "We don't just harden our skin like the Marines. We project our spirit into the environment. We make the world an extension of our body. To the Kuja, the arrow is not a weapon—it is an envoy of the archer's will."
As Dragon began to form the early kernels of the Revolutionary Army—sending secret, wind-carried messages to Ivankov and Kuma—Tritoma was his primary tactician. She showed him how the Kuja had survived for centuries against the World Government: by being invisible until the moment of the strike, and by never underestimating the "intent" of the enemy.
It was in her arms that Dragon learned the Advanced Conqueror's Infusion—the ability to coat his wind-blades in the black lightning of the King. She taught him how to ensure his strikes didn't just hit the body, but shattered the very "concept" of the Devil Fruit powers his opponents relied on.
The Battle of Hachinosu: The Vow Fulfilled
Back in the present, Blackbeard roared in frustration, his right fist glowing with the white light of the Gura Gura no Mi. He unleashed a shockwave designed to shatter the very fabric of reality between him and Dragon.
"GURA GURA NO... SHATTER!"
The air cracked like a mirror. But Dragon didn't dodge. He stepped into the vibration.
Using the Advanced Observation he learned from Garp, he saw the frequency of the tremor. Using the Aro-Haki flow he learned from Tritoma, he adjusted his body's internal Haki to match the oscillation, effectively neutralizing the shockwave as it passed through him.
"Is that all, Teach?" Dragon's voice was the terrifying calm that precedes the end of a world.
He raised his hand, his fingers curved into the "Dragon's Claw" position. But the air around his hand wasn't just spinning; it was turning a deep, royal gold, rimmed with the jagged black lightning of the Monkey D. lineage.
"RYU NO KAGIZUME: EMPRESS'S BREEZE!"
Dragon lunged. He didn't just punch Blackbeard; he projected a compressed blast of wind infused with Advanced Internal Destruction Haki directly into the pirate's core. The attack bypassed the barrier of darkness and hit Teach's internal organs with the weight of a continent.
Teach coughed up a fountain of blood, his eyes bulging as the darkness around him vanished for a split second. His concentration was shattered by the sheer, suppressing pressure of Dragon's spirit.
"This... this pressure..." Teach wheezed, falling to one knee. "It's like the world itself is sitting on my chest!"
Luffy watched in awe. He saw the way his father moved—a perfect blend of Garp's raw, crushing power and Tritoma's graceful, piercing lethality.
The Secret Directive: Sabaody and the Path to the Sun
As Dragon stood over the wounded Blackbeard, his mind momentarily drifted back to a dark night on the Wind Granma, years ago, just before the events of the Sabaody Archipelago. He was meeting with Bartholomew Kuma in secret.
"Kuma," Dragon had said, looking out at the dark sea. "The time is coming. The Marines and the Government are closing in on the Straw Hats. They are not ready for what is coming. When the moment of collapse happens... you must protect them. But do not just save them. Scatter them."
Dragon's eyes had turned toward the direction of the Calm Belt. "Send them to the islands where they can learn the skills they lack. But my son... send him to his mother's land. Send him to Amazon Lily."
Kuma had paused, his Bible clutched in his large hands. "The island of women? Dragon, the law there is death to men. Even for your son..."
"He has Tritoma's heart," Dragon replied. "And Hancock is there now. She must be the one to show him the basics of what his mother used to educate me. He needs to learn the Flow if he is to survive the Throne."
Years later, at Sabaody, Kuma had fulfilled that vow. When Luffy landed on Amazon Lily, the elder Gloriosa had looked at him and felt a pang of ancient memory. She had told Boa Hancock about the former Empress who had died of a mysterious sickness—the "Sickness of Love."
The world believed Tritoma died because she loved a man she couldn't have. But Gloriosa knew the truth. Tritoma had died because she loved a man whose path was too dangerous for a child to follow, and she had sacrificed her royalty to ensure that child stayed hidden in the light of the East Blue.
Dragon stood over the Dark King on Hachinosu, the wind howling around him like a chorus of vengeful spirits. He looked back at Luffy for a fleeting second—a look of recognition, of pride, and of a promise kept to the Empress of the Sun.
"The Monkey D. family has always been the storm," Dragon said, his voice echoing across the island. "And today, the storm finally breaks the cage."
To be continued...