The war drums of the sea had begun to beat, and their rhythm was the heartbeats of giants.
On every deck of the Whitebeard fleet, a silent, lethal preparation was underway. Division commanders snapped into position, their very presence a promise of violence. Blades were drawn from sheaths, their edges humming with anticipation. Rifles were loaded with seastone-tipped rounds.
High above the Moby Dick's main mast, Marco hovered, his wings of incandescent blue phoenix flame stretching wide, illuminating the darkening sky like a defiant sun. Below him, Vista, the Flower-Sword, tightened his fine leather gloves, his twin sabers gleaming as if drinking in the stormlight. Jozu, a mountain of diamond and muscle, cracked his plated knuckles, the sound like grinding stones. A wide, eager grin stretched across his granite face. On the quarterdeck, Isshin slid his freshly polished blade back into its scabbard with a final, decisive click. His stance was relaxed, his eyes closed, but his entire being was a coiled spring of death.
Thatch, wiping a line of sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, adjusted his bandana and let out a nervous, hearty laugh. "Well, boys, I hope they brought dessert to go with all that damn candy!"
And in the distance—there they came.
From the churning heavens, a monstrous fleet bled through the black, bruised clouds. Big Mom's flagship, the Queen Mama Chanter, loomed in the center, a grotesque candy castle perched on a pyre of hellfire. Her children's ships flanked her—a bizarre, terrifying armada bristling with cannons, frosted with malevolent grins, and crewed by an army of animated sweets and tormented souls.
Floating beside her, enthroned upon the wind itself, was Shiki the Golden Lion. His wild mane fluttered, his swords-for-legs gleaming.
At Big Mom's right hand stood Katakuri, a silent monolith of power, his arms crossed, his gaze already fixed on the future. Behind them, Perospero leered, his sickly pink tongue lolling out, his candy staff twirling like a diabolical drill.
The clouds swirled and screamed. With a gut-wrenching roar, Big Mom launched herself from her ship. She was a meteor of flesh and fury, crashing down onto the deck of the Moby Dick with the force of a fallen mountain.
BOOM.
The entire ship screamed, its massive timbers groaning under her impossible weight, but the Adam Wood held.
Whitebeard rose to his feet, a towering god of the seas, the veins on his arms bulging like thick ropes. He drew his bisento, and the Gura Gura no Mi began crackled in his arm. The very sea quivered in fear.
"You dare set foot on my ship, Linlin?!" Whitebeard's voice was not a shout; it was a physical force, cracking the sky like thunder.
Big Mom laughed, a high, maniacal sound, her eyes wild with bloodlust. "You've always liked your dramatic entrances, Newgate! I thought you'd appreciate the spectacle!"
Then it happened. The world went silent for a single, breathless moment.
Their weapons clashed.
Whitebeard's bisento, glowing with the white, fractured light of a world-breaking quake, met Big Mom's living sword, Napoleon, in a cataclysmic blaze of sparks and Conqueror's Haki. The sky above them split in two, torn asunder from horizon to horizon. The ocean itself was cleaved, the water torn from its bed and sucked into the vortex of their clash like a black hole.
The pirates on deck stumbled, grabbing onto railings and masts for dear life.
Jozu shielded his face with a diamond arm. "The sea's breaking—again! Those damn monsters!"
Shiki hovered high above the battlefield. His golden mane glinted as he laughed. "Wororororo! What a lovely and violent family reunion!" He floated down to hover beside Big Mom, the two of them suspended like twin tyrants in the sky.
Big Mom's grin was a mile wide. "Hand over Smoothie, Newgate! And the child in her belly! They belong to the Charlotte family!"
Whitebeard's eyes narrowed into slits of pure fury. "She belongs to no one but herself. And that child is my grandchild."
Shiki raised a hand, a cruel smile on his face.
"Then sink."
With a casual gesture, he summoned his power. A meteor the size of a small island, wreathed in the flames of atmospheric entry, descended from the heavens.
"GOLDEN ROCK FALL!"
The burning rock plummeted toward them, a sentence of divine punishment.
Marco's wings exploded outward in a torrent of regenerative flame. "Not today, you old fossil."
He became a comet of azure fire, spiraling upward. He slammed into the meteor midair. The impact was silent for a moment before a massive explosion of fire and rock lit up the sky. The meteor shattered into a thousand molten stones, each one hissing as it plunged into the raging ocean below.
"Too slow, grandpa," Marco called down with a cocky smirk.
Suddenly, a thick, sticky mass of white flowed from the Moby Dick's mast, coalescing into a towering figure behind him.
"You were a second too slow."
Marco spun, his eyes widening. He clashed with Katakuri midair, a breathtaking vortex of cerulean fire and molten, super-heated mochi.
From the storm clouds, Zeus and Prometheus roared, gorging themselves on the turbulent atmosphere. The storm god and the sun ball grew ten times in size, their faces twisted in manic glee.
"MAMAMAMA! THEY'RE ALL GONNA BURN!"
They began their dreadful descent toward the Moby Dick, preparing to unleash a combined hellfire of lightning and solar flares. At the same time, Perospero extended a gleaming, treacherous candy staircase from his ship, levitating down toward the infirmary quarters.
Below deck, another contraction wracked Smoothie's body. She clutched her belly, gasping for breath. Gunnar stood beside her, unwavering, one hand resting on the hilt of his blade. He was the final wall.
Whitebeard's voice boomed, a command that shook every soul on his crew. "DEFEND HER WITH YOUR LIVES!"
Vista became a blur of steel and flowers, launching himself through the air. He landed with impossible grace just as Perospero's candy bridge touched the deck near the infirmary door.
Vista spun his blade, a flurry of rose petals swirling around him. "That's quite far enough, sugar man."
Perospero sneered. "Tsk. Out of my way, mustache boy. This is a family matter. I'm here for my sister."
"You will address her as the Commander's wife," Vista said, his voice cold as steel. "And you will pass only over my dead body."
Their blades met in a shower of sparks—a storm of razor-sharp rose petals against a torrent of hardened, weaponized syrup.
Above them, Shiki laughed, and with another wave of his hands, an entire volley of meteors rained from the sky. The fleet of candy ships opened fire, unleashing a barrage of cannonballs, explosive jawbreakers, and screaming homing missiles.
The war had begun not with a single shot, but with the heavens themselves falling upon them.