Memories Breaking Free, Mangekyo Sharingan

"Boom—!!!"

An unprecedentedly violent shockwave erupted from Rochi's body, blasting the surrounding stretchers and veteran soldiers more than ten meters away!

Rochi clutched his head tightly with both hands and dropped heavily to his knees in the mud churned by the rain.

It felt as though his brain had been smashed apart by a red-hot sledgehammer, then forcibly put back together!

The cruel truths that had been deliberately altered and sealed deep within his soul now burst forth like a breached flood, tearing apart every illusion he had built around this world with unstoppable fury!

The illusion shattered.

Within his mind.

Where was the peaceful Locke Village of the East Blue?

Where was the kind-faced mother sitting beneath a kerosene lamp, mending fishing nets?

Fifteen years ago!

When that brutal campaign of forced mass conscription swept across the East Blue.

Because Locke Village could not provide enough able-bodied young men, the officer who had come to recruit casually waved his hand and issued an order to wipe out the entire village!

Fire rained from the sky, and cannon fire filled the heavens.

Kneeling in the mud, Rochi watched as his mother was beheaded by a Navy officer while shielding him and his sister. Her spraying blood splashed across his face, still warm.

The villagers were lined up and shot down like pigs and dogs, while the cries of children gradually faded into dead silence amid the raging flames.

All one hundred and thirty-four villagers—none were spared! Every one of them became a sacrifice to power!

And amid the heaps of corpses.

His frail, blood-covered sister, Roski, held the terrified, stunned Rochi tightly in her arms.

Overwhelmed by terror and grief, Roski had accidentally obtained that cursed Illusion-Illusion Fruit!

"Little brother... don't look... don't remember..."

Tears of blood streamed down Roski's face as she pressed her trembling hands against Rochi's forehead.

She forcibly stripped this hellish memory from Rochi's mind and sealed it away!

Not only that, but so that Rochi could live a normal life, she used illusions to fabricate a warm, "false memory" for him out of thin air!

To sustain that lie, to preserve for her little brother the last trace of hope left in this world.

Roski locked herself in the ruins of that village, which had become a ghost village, and endured there alone for fifteen whole years!

Until a few days ago, when she faced the encirclement of Cipher Pol Agents.

Knowing she could no longer keep it hidden, she chose to detonate her soul and perish together with her enemies, turning the truth into this Memory Crystal!

"So that's it..."

"My entire life for the past decade and more... was all a lie..."

In the real world, rain poured down in torrents.

Rochi, kneeling on the ground, slowly lowered his hands from his face.

Two startling trails of crimson tears mixed with the cold rain and slowly slid down his handsome yet deathly pale cheeks, shattering against the bluestone pavement.

Fifteen years!

He had claimed to see through life and death, treating slaughter like a game for gaining experience—the Asura!

He had even mocked pirates with attachments as weaklings!

But only today did he understand that he himself was the most pathetic clown in this world!

"Aaaaarghhh!!!"

Rochi threw back his head and roared, a bloodcurdling wail erupting from his throat that no human should have been able to make.

His originally deep black eyes instantly turned a glaring scarlet under the stimulus of extreme grief and boundless fury!

The three black tomoe slowly turning within his eyes seemed to sense the hatred in their host, hatred powerful enough to tear apart a soul.

They spun faster and faster!

"Bzzzz—!"

Amid an intensely violent spasm in his pupils, the three tomoe finally connected end to end and underwent an indescribably horrific transformation!

The tomoe twisted and stretched, ultimately intertwining against the scarlet backdrop to form an incomparably intricate, demonic pattern like a three-bladed Asura scythe—

Mangekyo Sharingan!!!

The ultimate rule of Sharingan evolution required suffering the utmost agony of losing one's beloved.

And now, amid the despair of his falsehood being torn apart and his last remaining family member vanishing into nothingness, Rochi successfully crossed this cursed abyss!

"Rumble—!!!"

As the Mangekyo Sharingan fully awakened!

An unprecedented, nearly tangible killing intent swept across the entire G-8 base fortress, mingled with terrifying Conqueror's Haki that seemed capable of destroying heaven and earth!

"Crack, crack, crack, crack!"

The supposedly indestructible outer walls of the fortress split apart beneath that pressure! Several warships docked in the harbor had their masts snap in unison, unable to withstand the tangible oppressive force!

"Ugh..."

The elite veteran soldiers from Headquarters stared in utter horror.

"Th-those are Colonel Rochi's eyes..."

"Are those the eyes of a devil?!"

Just as the entire base was shrouded in that despairing killing intent, and the air itself seemed about to freeze into frost!

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

At the end of the horizon, the piercing roar of heavy artillery suddenly rang out!

Several shells trailing blazing exhaust flames brutally crossed the base's air-defense line and struck the sea less than a hundred meters from the docks, blasting towering columns of water into the sky.

Immediately afterward.

Three black steel warships flying the World Government's special cross insignia emerged like ghosts from the fog, cutting through it with overwhelming force as they charged into G-8's waters!

The decks of the warships were packed with top-tier agents dressed in black suits.

And at the bow of the lead ship.

Stood three men in white robes, their faces hidden behind masks bearing strange totem patterns.

Each of them radiated an aura that had unmistakably reached the terrifying combat strength of Rear Admiral Level!

CP0! The World Government's strongest directly controlled assassination and intelligence agency!

"Rochi!"

The CP0 commander at the center, codenamed "Withered Bone," looked down from above at the youth standing on the docks, drenched by the rain with his back turned toward them.

Withered Bone's cold, arrogant voice resounded across the entire harbor through an amplified Den Den Mushi:

"Your background has been fully investigated by the World Government!"

"A remnant of Locke Village actually hid behind a Fruit ability and brazenly infiltrated the upper ranks of the Navy!"

"Hand over the Memory Crystal of the Illusion-Illusion Fruit, then surrender and return with us to the Holy Land of Mary Geoise to face judgment!"

"This is an order from the highest authority in the world! Anyone who resists will be executed on the spot along with this entire G-8 base, and erased completely!"

That lofty tone, that arrogant authority over life and death.

In their eyes, no matter how powerful Rochi was, before the World Government's vast machine, he was merely an insect they could crush at any time.

However.

Faced with the encirclement of three warships and hundreds of agents, as well as that warning powerful enough to crush everything.

Rochi, kneeling in the mud, finally rose slowly to his feet.

Rainwater slid down his soaked black hair.

He slowly turned around and raised his head.

Two shocking trails of blood stood out on that pale, handsome face, while his Mangekyo Sharingan, patterned like three-bladed Asura scythes, locked tightly onto the three CP0 agents!

"So... you're Cipher Pol people."

Rochi casually tore off the Navy cloak from his shoulder, the symbol of the World Government's "Absolute Justice," and let the violent wind sweep it into the freezing sea.

Rochi raised his right hand and clenched it fiercely in midair. A mass of solid energy, black and violent like an abyss, began to gather wildly around him!

"Since you're here, then... join my family in death!"