Sea Circle Calendar, Year 1532.
Somewhere in the New World, a sizable Marine warship cut across the open sea.
On its deck, a pitch-black fist collided violently with a blackened naginata.
Dark arcs of Haki crackled between the two weapons, flashing wildly with every impact.
“BOOM!” A deafening blast thundered into the sky.
The shockwave swept across the ship, instantly swelling the sails and nearly snapping the mast in half.
The entire warship rocked violently.
Even the Marines in sailor uniforms struggled to keep their footing as two figures suddenly broke apart, each hurtling backward across the deck.
The man wielding the naginata had a strangely disproportionate body.
His upper body bulged with absurd amounts of muscle, while the two legs beneath him were as thin as bamboo poles.
A crescent-shaped white mustache curved over his upper lip.
Grinning foolishly, he raised his naginata, its blade gleaming coldly beneath the sunlight.
“Mom!
If I beat these guys, Dad will finally know who I am, right?!” Standing on his shoulder was a tiny old woman with thick red lipstick, sunglasses, and a cane.
She was short, hunched, and covered in wrinkles, looking almost like an old witch.
Buckingham Stussy let out a shrill, cackling laugh.
“That’s right, Weevil!
Take down that bastard Zephyr, and it won’t just be your father.
The whole world will know your name!” “Everyone, fall back!” The burly old man wearing a coat of justice over a purple suit barked the order in a cold voice.
Soft purple hair framed his face, and a pair of gold-rimmed glasses rested over his sharp eyes.
“These aren’t opponents any of you are ready to face!” Behind him stood the Marine recruits taking their final graduation exam.
Some looked terrified, while others watched the battle with obvious worry.
“Instructor Zephyr!” A female Marine with beautiful, shoulder-length blue hair gritted her teeth.
“We can fight too—” “Ain, that’s an order!” The Chief Instructor of Marine Headquarters, former Admiral Black Arm Zephyr, clenched his blackened fists.
His eyes behind the gold-rimmed glasses remained locked on the idiot-looking man before him.
“Protect yourselves.
That’s your job right now!” Leaving the old woman aside, the man claiming to be Whitebeard’s son was anything but ordinary.
His Haki was nothing exceptional, but that monstrous physical strength truly carried a hint of Whitebeard himself.
Who exactly were this mother and son?
And what kind of lunatics would dare attack a training ship under his command?
Dark Haki surged around Zephyr’s fists, crackling into countless fine black arcs of electricity.
“Heh, Zephyr.
Not bad!” Stussy leaned against her cane, her crimson lips curling into a sly grin.
“Weevil, that old bastard won’t go down easily!
Take care of those brats first!” “Okay, Mom!” Weevil answered loudly with his usual stupid grin.
His muscular body suddenly blurred, moving so quickly that he seemed to turn into the wind itself as he charged toward the gathered recruits.
“You bastard!!” Veins bulged across Zephyr’s forehead.
This was exactly what he had been worried about.
Weevil was undeniably powerful, but Zephyr himself wasn’t afraid of him.
The problem was that there were hundreds of young recruits aboard this ship.
Defeating this monster while making sure none of them were hurt was another matter entirely— “Weevil!
Stop!” An elderly voice suddenly rang out.
Weevil, who had been moving like a gale, froze in place.
His raised naginata stopped in midair as he stared blankly ahead, mucus running from his nose and soaking into his mustache.
“HUUUH?!” His eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
“There’s another Mom!!” At some point, another old woman had appeared on the deck directly ahead of him.
She looked exactly like the mother standing on his shoulder.
And there wasn’t just one.
More identical old women began appearing one after another, materializing from every direction around them.
“Weevil!” All of them called his name at once before rushing toward the mother and son from every side.
Zephyr’s eyes widened slightly.
Then the corner of his mouth lifted.
His entire body suddenly vanished from sight.
Ain’s face immediately lit up.
“It’s Nate!
He finally woke up!” “What in the world is this?” Standing on Weevil’s shoulder, Buckingham Stussy—former officer of the Rocks Pirates—stared in disbelief at the countless versions of herself swarming toward them.
Everything else had vanished.
The Marines, the ship, even the surrounding deck were gone.
All she could see were endless copies of herself rushing closer.
An illusion?
With decades of experience behind her, Stussy immediately understood the most likely explanation.
“A Devil Fruit user?” In this world, almost anything that defied common sense could usually be explained by someone’s ability.
“Whoa!
So many Moms!!” Weevil whipped his head from side to side so quickly that his eyes nearly lost focus.
Within seconds, he had practically made himself dizzy.
“Weevil!
Watch out!” Stussy suddenly screamed.
She couldn’t see it, but her Observation Haki had detected an incoming attack.
The real problem was that her idiot son hadn’t noticed a thing.
“Huh?” Weevil’s overloaded brain barely managed to process the warning.
Acting purely on instinct, he raised his right arm and coated it in Armament Haki.
Zephyr suddenly emerged from empty space.
His black iron fist slammed directly into Weevil’s raised arm.
Crack!
A sickening sound rang out as Weevil’s hastily defended arm snapped under the impact.
He screamed as the punch sent him flying, his body tumbling several times through the air before crashing awkwardly back onto the deck.
Zephyr didn’t hesitate for even a second.
He kicked off the air and shot after Weevil like a cannonball.
“Good work, Nate!
The old woman is yours!” Stussy had been standing on Weevil’s shoulder when he was launched away.
With her foothold suddenly gone, the tiny old woman was thrown helplessly backward through the air.
‘This is bad!’ Cold sweat instantly covered her wrinkled face.
“Making me bully the elderly?
Seriously…” A young voice drifted through the air, slow and lazy, carrying the heavy drowsiness of someone who had just woken up.
“I love this kind of thing.” A sharp whistle followed.
The air was suddenly torn apart.
An invisible attack was already coming.
‘What kind of ability is this?
Illusions and invisibility?’ Stussy gritted her teeth and tightened her grip around her cane.
There was no time to figure it out.
‘Don’t underestimate me, brat.
I was an officer of the Rocks Pirates back in my day—’ Bang!
The air exploded.
Stussy’s already wrinkled face suddenly caved inward as an invisible blow smashed directly into it.
Her nose collapsed, blood sprayed through the air, broken teeth scattered from her mouth, and her entire face was instantly left mangled.
Her mind went completely blank.
‘What happened?’ ‘Another attack appeared out of nowhere?’ ‘What kind of ability is this?!’ Only then did the strike that had visibly torn through the air finally arrive.
“Rankyaku!” An invisible axe-shaped blade of compressed air slammed into Stussy’s waist.
Already reeling from the first blow, the once-famous pirate was folded violently around the impact.
“WAAAH!!” A shrill scream tore from her throat.
The second attack was much weaker than the first, but she hadn’t been able to defend against it at all.
It felt as though her waist had nearly been kicked in half.
‘No…
I can’t let them capture me.’ ‘If they do, Weevil…’ Buckingham Stussy was already sixty-seven years old, an elderly woman by any standard.
Even so, she desperately fought to remain conscious.
Then an overwhelming wave of sleepiness struck her.
Already badly injured, she had no strength left to resist.
Her consciousness instantly sank into darkness.
Whoosh!
The old woman fell toward the deck like a meteor and smashed heavily into the reinforced wood.
The impact dented the deck and sent cracks spreading outward.
Her body bounced back into the air like a rubber ball, only for a long, slender hand with clearly defined knuckles to clamp around her head and stop her cold.
A young man who looked around seventeen or eighteen slowly emerged from empty space.
Holding Stussy effortlessly in one hand, he landed lightly on the deck.
He wore the standard Marine sailor uniform, though his neckerchief was slightly messy.
His body was tall and slender, standing close to two meters in height.
Naturally curly black hair fluttered messily in the sea breeze, its texture unusually soft.
His skin was so pale that he hardly looked like someone who spent his days exposed to the wind and sun at sea.
With clear features, red lips, and neat white teeth, he was an exceptionally handsome young man.
There was only one problem.
His eyes looked far too lifeless.
His eyelids drooped lazily, and he was still yawning as though he had only just crawled out of bed.
“Aah…” Nate Knight yawned again before lifting his heavy eyelids and looking toward the far end of the deck.
There, Zephyr was still locked in fierce combat with Weevil.
Nate watched for a moment, then sighed.
“Well, would you look at that…” ‘He got his arm broken by a single punch and can still fight Instructor Zephyr this well.’ ‘Is Weevil really that strong…
or have you gotten that much weaker, Instructor?’ Nate shifted the unconscious Stussy in his hand before raising his voice as much as his exhausted tone allowed.
“Oi, idiot son over there.” Weevil, who had been desperately trying to withstand Zephyr’s assault, immediately froze.
Nate lazily lifted Stussy a little higher.
“Your precious mom’s already been captured.” Weevil completely forgot about the fight.
His head snapped toward Nate, and his eyes widened in horror when he saw his mother dangling from the young Marine’s hand.
“MOM!!” In the very next instant, Zephyr’s iron fist smashed straight into his face.