(Time rewound to one second after Luffy activated Gear Fifth for the second time, entering with the giants and stunning everyone present.)
Emeth lay there quietly.
As the liberating drumbeat of Luffy's Gear Fifth, accompanied by the giants' war cries and the violent surges of battle,
reached its dormant core clearly for the second time...
it was stirred once more.
At the center of its enormous helmet, the light in its eyes flickered faintly.
It "sensed" that the "thing" in its lower left chest, which it had previously told that young bearer of the Will of D about,
seemed to have gone unused.
And Luffy himself was gone, but Imu's presence had not vanished.
A simple, direct chain of logic formed in Emeth's consciousness:
[Thing unused... bearer departed... entered dangerous battlefield...]
[Inference: bearer may have... met with disaster... or been forced to abandon it...]
[Source of threat: high probability of interference by "it" (Imu)...]
A resolve born of an ancient promise and profound guilt ignited.
[Luffy... (it had remembered this name)]
[I... won't let you die...]
[Joy Boy... I'm sorry... once again... I must use... the power you left behind...]
Emeth's arm began to move with agonizing slowness.
It reached around its thick breastplate toward an ancient button on its lower abdomen, hidden so well that it almost blended into the surrounding armor.
It pressed gently.
"Click."
A faint mechanical sound rang out.
The section of armor it had pressed sank slightly inward,
then unfolded silently like an intricate puzzle cube,
revealing an utterly ordinary knot inside.
The knot looked ordinary, but sealed within it was
the Conqueror's Haki of the mightiest being of a bygone era!
[Joy Boy's... final... gift...]
Emeth's consciousness seemed to resonate with the knot.
It gently hooked a finger around one end.
Then it pulled