The God Valley Incident

The first half of the Grand Line.

"Bad news, Captain!"

"The Marines! That Marine warship caught up with us again!"

"What?! Quick, pick up speed! Pick up speed!"

Panic swept through the pirate ship.

After plundering a town yesterday, they had been throwing a banquet aboard their ship.

Then they encountered a Marine warship on patrol.

Flushed with success, they had wanted to raise their bounties even higher.

But before they could charge over to attack,

the warship opposite them accelerated straight toward them.

At the same time, magma bombs rained down from the sky.

The blasts scattered everyone aboard and scared them sober.

If the Grand Line's weather hadn't suddenly changed, they would already have been in prison yesterday.

They hadn't expected that warship to stay hot on their heels even after they had fled all night.

Meanwhile.

As the warship accelerated, the Marine lieutenant commander in charge of its cannons asked Sakazuki,

"Rear Admiral Sakazuki, we're within firing range."

"Shall we open fire?"

Sakazuki's cold voice rang out.

"Open fire."

"Accelerate. Prepare to board."

As they closed in, both sides fired their cannons.

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

Half the shells fired by the warship struck the pirate ship.

They nearly blasted it to a standstill.

The pirates, on the other hand, had fired their cannons in a panic.

Most of their shots went wide.

Only a few shells flew straight toward the space above the warship.

Just then, a figure leaped from the deck and used Geppo to fly toward the shells.

A blade sliced through the air...

The shells were cleaved in half and fell into the sea, leaving the warship completely unharmed.

Sakazuki nodded.

"Well done, Doberman."

As Doberman landed, he heard Sakazuki's praise.

He chuckled.

Sakazuki had rescued Doberman during his Elite Class graduation exam.

Time had flown by at the training camp, and the schedule was far more intense than that of the later Elite Class. The world was currently overrun with monsters, especially the Pirate Alliance led by Rocks, which had been making frequent moves in recent years.

That left the Elite Class students with very little time to train in peace.

Once they reached a passing standard, they graduated early and headed out to sea to fight pirates.

It was against this backdrop that Sakazuki had rescued Doberman while passing through a small town during his graduation exam. Seeing his promising talent, he had taken him straight back to headquarters for training.

Compared with the original story, Doberman had joined the Marines and the Elite Class many years earlier.

This year, because of the Rocks Pirates' major operations,

Marine Headquarters was also preparing urgently for war.

All the school's instructors had been dispatched.

As a result, the newly admitted Elite Class students had no one to teach them.

Fleet Admiral Kong had therefore made a temporary decision to divide the Elite Class students into groups and send them aboard various flag officers' ships for instruction.

When Sakazuki selected students this time, he chose a few who belonged to the hawkish faction.

Then he led them out to eliminate pirates.

Over the course of a year, they had wiped out plenty of pirates, but had not left a single survivor.

Zephyr had noticed this problem too.

He had spoken with Sakazuki several times, but neither could ever convince the other...

Boom!

The warship accelerated and rammed the pirate ship.

The already battered pirate ship nearly snapped in two, and water began leaking into its hold.

"Finish this quickly."

Sakazuki gave the order.

Marine soldiers and students leaped aboard the pirate ship and began fighting.

"No retreat! Fight them to the death!"

"Kill them!!!"

Their captain, Spring Renko, shouted.

The pirates' ferocity surged as well, and each charged at the Marines with a large blade in hand.

"Spring Punch!"

Renko's arm transformed into a spring. After compressing it, he punched out viciously, killing the soldiers who failed to dodge almost instantly.

Although people in the pirate world had powerful bodies...

when they encountered someone even stronger, they were no different from ordinary people.

It was like attaching a rock to a spring and stretching it dozens of meters.

Then letting go and striking someone in the face...

"Spring Dash!"

The compressed spring shot out in a blur, striking repeatedly like a spear and sending Marine soldiers flying, coughing up blood.

Doberman, who was fighting nearby, saw what was happening and rushed over with his sword drawn.

"Sword Bite!"

He swung his blade, unleashing a slash of sword energy.

The faint silhouette of a roaring beast appeared within it as it slashed fiercely toward Renko.

Renko turned to block, but the tremendous force drove him back more than a dozen steps.

Having seized the initiative, Doberman kept swinging his sword.

Renko could only defend passively, taking several cuts in his hurried attempts to block.

His movements weren't hindered at all. It seemed the attacks still lacked enough power.

But Renko couldn't counterattack and could only remain on the defensive.

That was the difference between someone self-taught and someone with dedicated instructors.

After all, he was a pirate with no one to teach him.

Though he had some strength, his movements were somewhat clumsy, and he failed to seize openings in battle.

Still, he had his merits.

He had fought his way this far, after all. Even at a disadvantage, he possessed excellent physical endurance.

Despite taking many cuts under Doberman's frenzied sword strikes, his movements showed no sign of slowing.

Suddenly!

Doberman changed his attack and swung again.

As Renko raised his arm to block, Doberman thrust out a finger on his left hand.

"Finger Pistol!"

He drove it toward Renko's eye.

Squelch!

"Aaaah!!!!"

Renko screamed repeatedly as his left eye burst.

He stumbled back, covering his eye with one hand.

Doberman seized the chance and tried to behead him.

His blade cut halfway into Renko's neck, only for Renko to lower his left hand and grab it.

With adrenaline surging through him,

Renko knew he was about to die, and his savagery erupted.

"Die, damn you!!!!!!"

Gripping the blade in his left hand, he wrenched it outward.

Then he yanked hard.

At such close range, Doberman couldn't dodge in time.

Just as Renko's right fist, transformed into a compressed spring, was about to slam into him,

a magma bullet flew from Sakazuki's fingertip in the distance.

It passed through the gap between the two men, struck Renko, and exploded against his body with a boom.

The magma bullet unleashed a broad splash of magma that engulfed Renko.

"Aaargh!!!"

One scream rang out, then he fell silent.

All that remained was a pool of magma on the deck, giving off thick, acrid smoke.

At some point, Sakazuki had appeared a short distance behind Doberman.

This was an exercise to train the troops, so casualties were inevitable.

But the casualty rate had to be controlled. His finger flicked.

Magma bullets flew out one after another, killing more than half the pirates.

Terrified out of their minds, the remaining pirates surrendered.

"Tend to the wounded."

At Sakazuki's order,

the Marines began treating the wounded in an orderly fashion, while another group went to gather the supplies aboard the pirate ship.

The remaining Marines returned to the warship without being told.

Then they escorted all the prisoners onto the pirate ship.

The terrified pirates whispered among themselves.

"Hey... are they letting us go?"

"No way."

"But they've all gone back."

"Well... let's wait and see. Once the Marines leave, we'll sail away."

After all, they had been captured only to be sent back to their own ship. They had never experienced anything like this, much less heard of it.

Meanwhile.

"Reporting in. All prisoners have been rounded up."

"Headquarters also called. All officers of flag rank and above have been ordered to assemble there."

"Understood."

After listening to his adjutant's report, Sakazuki replied calmly.

They're summoning all the flag officers. Is that incident about to happen...?

Then he gazed impassively at the pirate ship. His right arm turned into surging magma, forming a gigantic fist that billowed thick black smoke.

"Great Eruption!"

Boom!

"Return to base."

"Yes, sir!!!!!"

In the year 1484 of the Sea Circle Calendar, as Rocks' ambitions continued to swell, the God Valley Incident erupted...

(The God Valley arc may contain plenty of inconsistencies, since Oda hasn't drawn that part yet... this is my own fan-created version.)