Sengoku's Headache of a Supernova

Marineford. Top-floor conference room.

Sengoku removed his round frog-frame glasses. The brass temples struck the mahogany conference table with a crisp clack.

He pressed his temples hard with his thumb and middle finger. The veins there throbbed violently. His nails left two deep red marks on his forehead, but he did not notice at all.

More than a dozen battle damage reports lay scattered across the desk. Their edges had wrinkled from soaking in seawater.

On top was a blurry photograph stained with blood.

"Seven main warships sunk. Twelve hundred dead and wounded."

Sengoku's voice was dry, as though he had swallowed a handful of sand. His Adam's apple bobbed with difficulty.

"Even the admiral leading the fleet had his right arm severed by a single slash. The military doctors had to forcibly clamp off the blood vessels to save his life."

The conference room was silent. Only the monotonous ticking of the seagull-shaped clock on the wall could be heard.

Fleet Admiral Kong, seated at the head of the table, interlaced his fingers and rested the backs of his hands against his chin. His expression was as grim as the sea before a storm.

Garp sat on an upholstered sofa in the corner.

He had been chewing on a rice cracker. When he heard the casualty count, his jaw stopped moving.

Half a rice cracker fell from his mouth and landed on his military trousers. Salt dust smeared the white fabric, but Garp did not brush it off.

Vice Admiral Tsuru sat on the right side of the long table. She was lowering her head as she folded a white paper crane.

Her fingers suddenly stiffened. She accidentally tore off part of the crane's wing. The scrap of paper fell to the floor.

Sengoku put his glasses back on. He picked up the photograph and strode to the blackboard.

He picked up a piece of chalk, scraping it across the board with a piercing sound.

"The surviving navigators and lookouts gave completely consistent statements."

Sengoku jabbed the chalk hard against the blackboard. The chalk snapped in two and fell by his feet.

"At the start of the battle, the wall of water on the sea completely defied gravity. It rose directly into the air and formed a defensive barrier."

He turned around. His palms were slick with sweat. He casually wiped them twice on his white Justice coat.

"After that came indiscriminate lightning bombardment, as well as a terrifying gravity field that directly crushed the flagship's deck."

Sengoku grabbed the teacup on the table and gulped down a mouthful. The tea had long gone cold, and its bitterness numbed his tongue.

"Logia-type: Rumble-Rumble Fruit."

Sengoku set down the teacup and stared fixedly at the other three people in the room.

"Along with the Paramecia-type: Float-Float Fruit."

The words landed like a blow, and the air in the conference room seemed to be sucked dry in an instant.

"Sengoku, do you know what you're saying?"

Tsuru stood up. The chair legs dragged across the carpet with a dull sound. The wrinkles on her face creased together, and her expression had never been more solemn.

"The iron law of Devil Fruits is right there. If one person eats two fruits, their body will explode into a pile of flesh on the spot. No one has broken that rule in eight hundred years."

"But the facts are right in front of us!"

Sengoku slammed his palm heavily onto the mahogany table.

The impact made the teapot on the table jump. Green tea splashed everywhere, dripping from the edge onto the wool carpet below.

"The admiral's arm was severed by lightning sword energy carrying gravitational pressure. The Float-Float Fruit that Golden Lion Shiki had been eyeing for half a year was snatched and eaten right in front of him by that brat!"

Sengoku's chest rose and fell violently as he gulped down air mixed with the scent of tea and sweat.

"Worst of all, that monster is only three years old this year!"

Fleet Admiral Kong released his hands. He grabbed the black Parker fountain pen on the table and removed its cap.

"Put out a bounty." Kong's voice carried profound exhaustion.

"This brat's threat level must be raised immediately. We can no longer regard him as one of Rocks's followers."

Sengoku nodded. He took a blank wanted-poster parchment.

The pen tip hovered over the paper for two seconds. A drop of black ink fell, spreading into a blot the size of a fingernail.

His first bounty. A three-year-old child.

Sengoku gritted his teeth, and the pen tip rapidly scratched over the parchment. He wrote a long string of numbers in the bounty field.

"Five hundred million Berries."

Sengoku pushed the completed wanted poster before Fleet Admiral Kong.

"It can only be higher, never lower. A dual-fruit user—if he grows up without incident, Marine Headquarters will have to sleep with one eye open from now on."

Garp picked up the half rice cracker from his trousers, tossed it into his mouth, and chewed it to pieces.

"Where the hell did that old lunatic Rocks find such a freak?"

Garp swallowed the rice cracker, picked up his teacup, and gulped down a huge mouthful. The water was too hot, scalding his tongue until he stuck it out repeatedly and hurriedly wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"He's no longer one of Rocks's people." Sengoku stared at Rektol's name on the blackboard.

He pulled a sealed secret report from a drawer and tossed it onto the table.

"The intelligence network just sent word. That brat splashed Rocks in the face with poisoned wine, then killed three assassins on the spot."

"He declared the Charlotte Family independent."

Sengoku took off his military cap and ran a hand through his sweat-soaked hair.

Rocks was an ambitious man whose goals could be seen clearly. He wanted to conquer the world and claim the lives of the Celestial Dragons. The Marines had plans and countermeasures.

But this Charlotte Family's eldest son named Rektol was an entirely unpredictable variable that defied all common sense.

He did not explode after eating two fruits. At three years old, he severed an admiral's arm. He had even seen through Rocks's poisoned-wine assassination attempt.

Something like that was far more terrifying than an openly evil pirate.

Sengoku turned to look at the Marineford plaza outside the window. The sea breeze made the white military flags flap loudly.

He realized that compared to Rocks's old, leaking ship—

This Charlotte Family's eldest son, who was growing at a terrifying pace and utterly beyond reason, was the greatest nightmare facing the future Marines, and even the entire World Government.

The wanted posters went into frantic mass printing that very afternoon.

In the underground factories of the World Economy News Paper, the smell of ink was overwhelming.

Hundreds and thousands of News Coo carried heavy bundles of newspapers, flapping their wings as they flew toward the four seas and the Grand Line.

Rektol's photograph, showing him surrounded by lightning with the blurred silhouette of a gravity field, accompanied by the earth-shaking bounty of five hundred million Berries, made him famous across the seas overnight.

The early foundations of Totto Land's headquarters.

The crimson sunset clouds dyed the sea blood-red. The ocean breeze carried a faint salty, fishy scent.

"Whoosh—"

A deep sound of tearing airflow came from midair. A massive shadow blotted out the sunlight along the coastline.

Rektol descended from the clouds.

Behind him, he used the Float-Float Fruit's power to forcibly drag more than a dozen battered Marine warships, along with piles of gold and Ancient Weapon wreckage excavated from underground ruins on a deserted island.

He casually tossed the heavy cargo onto an open space at the edge of the harbor.

"Boom!"

Dozens of tons of steel and timber crashed onto the ground, throwing up a cloud of sand and dirt three stories high.

The ground trembled violently.

Several pirate lackeys carrying wooden crates at the harbor lost their footing and fell into muddy puddles, getting mouthfuls of mud. Even the muskets in their hands fell into the sea.

Rektol released his Devil Fruit power.

Barefoot, he stepped onto the slightly cool beach. His boots had long been completely ruined in the intense battle. Thick calluses had formed on the soles of his feet, and he felt nothing when he stepped on broken shells.

He dusted the gunpowder ash from his arm and sneezed twice in a row.

The strain of two Devil Fruits combined with the long flight left an unbearable ache deep in his three-year-old bones. Right now, all he wanted was to return to the stone house and down a pot of cold water.

He walked around the mountain-like pile of spoils.

He had just passed through a patch of short coconut trees and was about to check on the family training ground.

Rektol stopped walking. His brows slowly furrowed as he stared fixedly at the beach ahead.

Several rusty wooden training swords lay scattered over the sand. Their grips were spotless, without even a trace of sweat.

Katakuri lay sprawled in a hollow in the sand.

The thick scarf around his mouth hung loosely around his neck, exposing his sharp fangs. Drool trickled from the corner of his mouth as he snored loudly. A hermit crab had crawled onto his stomach, yet he did not react at all.

Beside him, the chubby Cracker was even more outrageous.

Half his body was buried in warm sand as though it were a blanket. He still tightly clutched the bare bone of a roasted seabird leg he had gnawed clean. His stomach rose and fell with every breath.

A few steps away, several younger brothers and sisters had also fallen asleep in every direction across the beach.

They had completely thrown the brutal training plan they had set before leaving out of their minds.

A gust of sea wind swept past, carrying several fallen coconut leaves that landed directly on Cracker's face. With his eyes closed, Cracker scratched his face, rolled over, and continued sleeping.

Rektol stood beneath the shade of the trees.

As he looked at this hopeless bunch of younger siblings, the two pounding hearts in his chest gradually slowed.

The temperature in the surrounding air plummeted. Even the sea breeze carried a bone-chilling cold.

Rektol reached behind his lower back.

He drew out a leather whip as thick as two fingers, covered in dried black blood.