The Ending Was Set in Stone

Excitement flashed in Rogge's eyes. He had finally found his chance. As he had suspected, the pressure of the wind kept Smoker from turning his body into smoke.

Rogge seized the moment and charged. He outran the blast of wind he had sent out, and by the time Smoker recovered, Rogge was right in front of him.

Smoker's eyes widened at the approaching fist. He had never imagined Rogge would find a way to deal with him like this.

Bang!

Blood spurted from Smoker's mouth and nose. He stared in disbelief. He was hurt. Since obtaining his Devil Fruit, he could count the times he had been injured on one hand. In the New World, that would have been no surprise. But this was the First Half of the Grand Line, and he had been wounded here.

Rogge's grinning face was right in front of him. Smoker felt his cheeks burn. He had never thought he could be reduced to such a sorry state.

"White Vine!"

More than a dozen streams of white smoke burst from Smoker's body, reaching for Rogge like tentacles.

"Useless. The smoke your Devil Fruit makes can't hurt anyone. That fruit was trash to begin with," Rogge jeered.

"Shut up!" Smoker roared. He bound Rogge with the smoke, then swung a fist at him.

"Angry, are you? How long has it been since anyone hit you? Are all you Logia Devil Fruit users this touchy? Hahaha!" Rogge laughed. Now that he was actually fighting Smoker, he realized his earlier fears had been for nothing.

Smoker was strong against other people. Against Rogge, he posed no threat at all. That was the extent of the man's strength. The Smoke-Smoke Fruit was a Logia Devil Fruit, but it was nowhere near as powerful as Rogge had imagined.

In fact, Rogge considered it the worst of the worst. A Logia ability was still hard for ordinary people to handle. If Smoker were fighting Jelly and the others, he would probably wear them down until they died.

Rogge was different. He had awakened Observation Haki. He could not yet use Future Sight on a large scale, but what he could do was enough to deal with Smoker. And Smoker's Smoke-Smoke Fruit could not hurt him.

Rogge had destroyed Smoker's weapon, leaving him with only hand-to-hand combat. But that was what Rogge feared least. Unless Smoker could overwhelm him with physical skill and Haki, Rogge's Devil Fruit ability could break through any physical attack.

Smoker clearly had not realized that yet. His ability had trapped Rogge, true. He had caught him. And then?

Nothing. Before Smoker's fist could reach him, Rogge had already broken free.

Rogge slipped past the attack and, with a punch of his own, scattered Smoker's arm.

Smoker gritted his teeth. He had turned his body into smoke; otherwise, that blow really would have severed his arm.

He had just felt Rogge's power firsthand, and it had been awful. If he had not trained his body for so long, that punch would have killed him like it would any ordinary person.

"Damn it." Smoker clenched his teeth. Losing the shape of his arm was no problem. Instead, he used it to launch his next attack. His use of the fruit came down to one thing: using smoke for propulsion.

Rogge almost wanted to laugh at how Smoker used his power. Was the person who created this world an idiot, or was Smoker himself just stupid?

Even if the fruit was not trash, Smoker was using it like trash.

Smoker's fist shot toward him like a cannonball. Apparently, that was the only trick he had.

Bang!

Rogge might not have matched Smoker in raw strength, but his ability was simply too powerful. Smoker was like a baby who had trained hard trying to fight an adult. The gap between them remained enormous.

Devil Fruits had never been fair. If every ability were equally powerful, Oda would not have needed to hand Luffy so many miraculous power-ups.

Crocodile, Enel, Lucci, Shiki, Byrnndi World, Zephyr, Donquixote Doflamingo, Katakuri, and the Four Emperors he would face in the future—which of them could Luffy honestly say he had beaten through sheer superior strength?

To Rogge, the very idea was a joke. Crocodile had been a force on the seas in his youth; he had simply appeared too early. He had fought Bullet, a former apprentice on Roger's ship with power approaching that of a Four Emperor, to a draw. A man who could hold his own against just about anyone in the pirate world had lost because Luffy bled a little. That was a glaring flaw.

Then there was Enel. Lightning could melt metal and change its shape, but it could not melt rubber? Enel had it rough.

Lucci was CP9's prodigy, a master of Rokushiki who had even begun to touch upon advanced Armament Haki. He fought Luffy for ages, only for Luffy to rally at the last moment after hearing a few words from Usopp and suddenly beat Lucci down.

Shiki, Byrnndi World, and Zephyr were even more absurd. They were from Roger and Whitebeard's generation, figures who had once ruled the seas. And they lost too?

Donquixote Doflamingo had awakened his String-String Fruit and ranked among the strongest of the Shichibukai. Yet Luffy's second surge in Fourth Gear brought him down. While watching the Dressrosa arc, Rogge had desperately wanted Donquixote Doflamingo to finish Luffy off.

To Rogge, a pirate should have been someone like Donquixote Doflamingo: a ruthless, ambitious man with all the wickedness and cruelty a pirate ought to have. Unfortunately, his ability limited his strength. Donquixote Doflamingo was powerful, but he could not beat someone with an unfair advantage.

As for Katakuri, there was nothing more to say. He had gone easy on Luffy.

Back to the point: the strength of a Devil Fruit determined how far its user could go. Genes could decide whether a person could stomach cilantro. Whitebeard might still have been strong without the Tremor-Tremor Fruit, but he would never have reached a level that terrified both the Marines and the World Government.

Powerful hand-to-hand skills and swordsmanship could also earn a place on the seas. Why had Rogge kept up such harsh training after obtaining his Devil Fruit? Because he knew a Devil Fruit alone would never be enough in this world. A strong body mattered even more.

He had set himself a goal for the New World: before he entered it, he had to master two kinds of Haki. As for Conqueror's Haki, that was up to fate.

Smoker could no longer pose much of a threat to him. Unless someone stronger than a Marine Vice Admiral stepped in, Rogge feared no one. And even against a Vice Admiral, he wanted to test himself.

There was little need to describe how the fight ended. Rogge looked at Smoker, who was panting hard with blood dripping from his fists, and smiled. He had no intention of killing him. Instead, he called to Jelly and the others, "Come on, boys. Let's go."

"Coward!" Smoker spat through gritted teeth.